The Larry King Cardiac Foundation Helps Tanya Cunningham

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By Linda Wasmer Andrews

CNN talk show host Larry King has a mission: to save a heart a day. After suffering a heart attack in 1988, King formed a foundation that pays for lifesaving heart procedures for people who can't afford them.

Tanya Cunningham, an office manager from Princeton, Texas, was in her twenties when she developed a pericardial cyst--a growth on the thin sac surrounding the heart. Her husband's health insurance paid for surgery to remove the cyst. When she fell ill again in 2007, things were different.

Cunningham, then 34, was a separated mother of three when doctors discovered a grapefruit-sized tumor growing on her heart. Forced to quit work because of her illness, Cunningham had no health insurance yet didn't qualify for government assistance.

A nurse suggested that she apply to the Larry King Cardiac Foundation, which paid for her surgery, performed by cardiothoracic surgeon Michael Reardon, M.D., at Methodist Hospital in Houston. The seven-hour operation literally gave Cunningham back her life.

She and her husband, who have reconciled, recently bought their first home. Cunningham still doesn't have health insurance despite being back to work full-time. But she's grateful for all the blessings she does have.

"It makes me want to cry every time I think about getting that call saying they would pay for my surgery," she says. "Somebody I didn't even know cared enough about me to think I was worth saving. It was a big day for me."