News
Stewart Windham, active in Alpha-1 and COPD advocacy and support, dies at 55
TUPELO, Mississippi – William Stewart Windham, 55, who was long active in advocacy and support for patients with COPD and Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency, died Tuesday at North Mississippi Medical Center after a brief illness.
Windham, who had lung disease due to Alpha-1, had been hoping to be accepted on a lung transplant list later this year.
He was a well-known musician and music store owner who was wheelchair-bound and near death in 1996 after years of severe breathing problems. On a visit to National Jewish Health in Denver, CO, he was finally diagnosed with Alpha-1.
After six weeks of pulmonary rehabilitation, he was able to walk again, begin Alpha-1 augmentation therapy and return home.
He and his wife, Evelyn, formed a Mississippi Alpha-1 support group and hosted an Alpha-1 education day in Tupelo. They also worked with a pulmonary support group and a transplant/donor support and advocacy group.
In 2006, Stewart and Evelyn Windham testified in Washington along with Gerald Turino, MD, former chair of the COPD Foundation, to urge more funding for COPD research.
Evelyn Windham wrote about her husband’s health battles and the couple’s advocacy efforts in COPD Digest in 2006. “I believe that we have a moral and ethical obligation to seek change by speaking up for those who are too sick or weak to fight for themselves,” she said in that article.
Besides his wife, Stewart Windham is also survived by two sons, Blayze and Chase.
Services will be at 2 pm Thursday at the Tupelo Chapel of Holland Funeral Directors. Burial will be in Lee Memorial Park.
