Neurosurgery program at Silver Cross Hospital in New Lenox to expand in 2023

Last summer, Dr. Peleg Horowitz performed a six-hour brain surgery on a 79-year-old New Lenox woman at Silver Cross Hospital in New Lenox.

It is very unusual, Horowitz said, for a community hospital to offer this type of surgery.

But Horowitz is a brain tumor specialist and neurosurgeon with the University of Chicago of Medicine and part of “the expanding team of UChicago Medicine neuroscience experts treating patients at Silver Cross,” according to a news release from Silver Cross.

“We’ve been joined by a fantastic nurse practitioner, Diana Stefanik, and she brings with her exceptional experience in neurosurgery care from many places in the city,” Horowitz said. “I’m being joined this month – actually next week – with Dr. Deric Park, a neuro-oncologist from the University of Chicago, who will see patients with brain tumors with me.”

Silver Cross and UChicago Medicine already had collaborated on the UChicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center at Silver Cross Hospital and a breast cancer clinic, also at Silver Cross.

The expanded neurosciences collaboration, which already includes care for cancer, stroke and other neurological disorders, builds on that established commitment, according to Silver Cross.

Horowitz, who joined UChicago Medicine in 2016, started treating patients at Silver Cross in April 2022. The plan is to hire a second neurosurgeon to be Horowitz’s partner early this year, he said.

According to Silver Cross, it performs 100 brain surgeries a year and that number is expected to increase. That’s because it’s easier for patients with neurological illnesses in general and brain tumors in particular, to receive their care locally, Horowitz said.

“When I speak to these patients, they are very grateful to not have to travel into the city and, really, get all of their care close to home at Silver Cross,” Horowitz said. “It’s the convenience but also the toll on the patients, the families.”

Treatments for aggressive tumors can involve several weeks of daily radiation treatments, Horowitz said.

“To be able to receive that close to home and not have to travel more than an hour each day is very helpful to the patients,” Horowitz said.

Allison Rios of Joliet, one of the contributors to “Goodbyes Before You’re Gone,” which shares writers’ personal experiences with brain cancer, is excited about the program. Rios’ mother, Dawn Bailey, of Joliet died of a primary brain tumor – glioblastoma multiforme – on May 18, 2005, at the age of 61.

And while Rios loved the care her mother received at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, which included surgery and chemotherapy and radiation treatments, the two-hour roundtrip on top of the long appointments was challenging for Bailey and her family during the 13th months she battled the cancer.

“We loved Loyola,” Rios said. “I’m so grateful to those doctors. I cry just thinking about it. Both of them were just unbelievable. It was apparent how much they cared about their patients. But it would have been a lot easier if we did not have to drive.”

The long drive taxed Bailey the most. Rios said her mother often had edema so bad she couldn’t wear pants and had medication reactions so severe her skin bruised and peeled. By the time Bailey reached Loyola, she needed the bathroom, which Rios said necessitated her helping her mother into a wheelchair and then maneuvering it into a stall.

Whenever Bailey had an emergency at home – she had many, including seizures of all kinds and brain swelling so severe that she couldn’t wake up, Rios said – it often meant an hour-long ambulance ride since the local hospitals didn’t have her medical history, Rios said.

Bailey’s husband, Chuck Bailey, who has since died, would typically ride with her, often forgetting to bring the items he needed in the rush, Rios said. So that meant another family member would make one or more trips to Loyola to get those things to Chuck, Rios said.

If Dawn was hospitalized, her friends couldn’t visit often because of distance, Rios said. Rios herself had just graduated from college and was working two jobs – and her brother was several years younger than her.

The family wasn’t even able to treat Dawn to her favorite foods – Southern fried chicken from Cracker Barrel or Merichkas – because of the distance, Rios said.

“So it’s a little bit easier when you know good care is near,” Rios said.

“If the care there [Silver Cross] is equivalent to what the Chicago hospitals can offer, it’s really an amazing opportunity for Joliet residents – Will County residents – to stay near their home.”

‘It’s not something that’s typically done at a community hospital’

Edna Teodoro, 79, of New Lenox had the six-hour brain surgery last summer at Silver Cross Hospital.

This retired bank analyst and grandmother of five said in a news release from Silver Cross that she hadn’t felt right during her recent Hawaiian vacation. Teodoro said she also had bad headaches and memory issues.

It turned out that Teodora had a golf-ball-sized tumor in her brain that was causing swelling, which impacted her cognitive function, according to Silver Cross. Horowitz said the tumor, a meningioma, was benign, but difficult to reach.

“It’s complicated because of the location and the need to go through some of the brain to access the tumor in a deep location,” Horowitz said. “It’s not something that’s typically done at a community hospital.”

According to Silver Cross, Teodoro spent four weeks in the hospital after her surgery and had speech and physical therapy at Silver Cross. She’s back to singing at her church and hopes to open an orphanage in her native Philippines, according to Silver Cross.

Before COVID-19, Teodora and her husband, Frank, “oversaw the installation of water pumps in remote areas of the country,” according to Silver Cross.

Horowitz agreed that Teodora is “doing pretty well,” although she’ll be monitored with MRIs for the rest of her life, according to Silver Cross.

“She has some occasional memory issues,” Horowitz said, “which would not be surprising for anyone her age.”