Tiffany returns from the brink with new enthusiasm for life

Erin Neff

Thursday, May 2, 2002 | 10:07 a.m.

Sandra Tiffany, a fiery lawmaker whose schedule is packed with business meetings, fitness activities and fun, knows how to live.

But it was a recent illness that taught her something more poignant -- how to die.

Tiffany, 52, is what doctors call a miracle and what the faithful consider someone with more work to do on this Earth.

"I can't tell you how every day when I wake up there's light outside and I say to myself, 'I'm alive,' " Tiffany said Tuesday at the central Las Vegas offices of Nevada Job Connect, where she consults clients in a welfare-to-work program.

That Tiffany is back to work after technically dying twice just weeks ago is, in and of itself, something miraculous.

"I truly understand what it is to die," Tiffany said.

The petite blonde was traveling to Sacramento on March 4 with a business partner, Craig Ellins, to discuss cell phone technology for law enforcement with California's attorney general.

About 20 minutes before the plane's scheduled landing in Burbank, Tiffany said what started as a typical healthy day for her suddenly changed dramatically.

"I felt a sharp pain in my right flank and felt instantly nauseated," said Tiffany, whose radiance in a red pant suit belied the tone of the story she was telling. "The flight attendant told me to sit down because we were about to land and I just couldn't move."

"I was instantly, terribly ill."

When the plane landed, a firefighter and paramedic met her with a stretcher -- her last memory for eight days.

Ellins helped check her into Providence St. Joseph's Medical Center, where medical staff diagnosed a kidney stone and scheduled an operation for the following day.

"I don't remember this, but I called my daughter and said, 'I need you to get here immediately,' " Tiffany said. "I was delirious."

The following day doctors removed a kidney stone they thought was causing her problem. But with the stone's removal, a pus-filled infection instantly filled its space and spread rapidly through Tiffany's body.

After the operation, doctors watched her blood pressure disappear and had to re-insert tubes that were "breathing" for her during surgery.

"It's amazing that I came back," Tiffany said.

The infection was severe sepsis -- a syndrome characterized by overwhelming loss of all bodily functions. First her breathing and then her liver and heart began to fail.

Sepsis can be triggered by any type of infection, and kills a third of the 750,000 people it strikes each year nationwide.

Tiffany's relatives and friends were summoned to the hospital to say goodbye.

Because her death was "certain," she was suited for Xigris -- a drug administered as a last-gap lifesaving measure for patients with severe sepsis.

The drug sent torrents of blood -- eight units in all -- streaming from her nose over the next six days as Tiffany moved in and out of consciousness unaware of where she was and unable to think how to ask.

"I can't describe how it is to literally lose eight days and slowly wake and find out what happened," Tiffany said. "Even when you're awake, you don't have the clear consciousness to ask anything or do anything."

But Tiffany began to recover, partly because of her excellent health and, some friends believe, because of the power of prayer.

"There was just no way we thought she would make it," said Republican Assemblywoman Barbara Cegavske, who was at her bedside. "I think she felt the support and I believe it helped."

When Tiffany awoke, she experienced her death again -- this time through the eyes of her family. Her sister had died in a car accident when she was 24 and now her parents were telling Tiffany how they thought they had lost a second daughter.

Cards, flowers and blood donations began pouring in from throughout Nevada for the Henderson lawmaker.

"You touch a lot of people's lives in public service, but it seems 50 percent of the people are mad at you all the time," she said. "I really believe all of Nevada was on alert and I felt that everybody cared about me living."

Tiffany said the experience made her even more committed to public service, in part because she believes she was spared for a reason.

"I really recognize what I had gone through gives me the opportunities I have right now," she said.

Tiffany is currently running for the state Senate, and working even harder to make up the three weeks she missed while hospitalized.

And, she said, she is more committed than ever to health issues -- most pressingly the current medical malpractice crisis she believes can be solved completely only with tort reform.

"I lived due to the access and quality of my health care," Tiffany said. "The quality of health care is just as important as K-12 education. If you don't have your health, you have nothing."

Tiffany is known for her firebrand politics -- often alienating Democrats and occasionally riling her own party. But the illness and recovery have softened her tone.

"There's a good quality of the love and patience combined with the passion," she said. "I find myself listening to people more and being more patient."

But she is healing the best by simply being alive -- working, campaigning, and twisting her doctor's arm to resume weight training.

"My personality is healing by being alive," Tiffany said. "That's how I heal the best."