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Medical Struggles
Kelli Jaunsen was about to turn 20, in 2003, when she got the worst news of her life: To survive, the young woman with the auburn hair and heartbreaker’s smile would need a new heart and a new liver. What’s more, her health insurance plan refused to pay for the million-dollar surgery. “They gave her a death sentence,” says her father, Robert Jaunsen. Most of the hospitals in California where the family lived were reluctant to consider such a risky procedure. Frantic at the thought that anything would stand in the way of Kelli’s survival, Robert resolved to do whatever it took to save his daughter. That’s when miracles started to happen.Kelli’s medical struggles began on December 7, 1983, the day she was born, in Chula Vista, California. She was cyanotic—there wasn’t enough oxygen getting to her blood, causing her to turn blue. This can signal many conditions, some of which are more serious than others. But “no one gave us any kind of alarm,” says Kelli’s dad. In fact, her parents only learned Kelli had a serious heart condition by chance. When the baby was about three months old, her mother, Ana, took Kelli and her older brother, Chris, to visit family in Guadalajara, Mexico. On the airplane, Kelli’s breathing became very labored.
When they arrived, Ana’s sister took them to the air force base in La Paz, where her husband was commander. One of the physicians there examined Kelli and discovered that something was wrong with her heart. “They told me it was really serious and that she probably wouldn’t live that long,” says Ana. “But I thought, No! My daughter’s a fighter. She will stay alive.”
Back home, the Jaunsens finally learned that the right side of Kelli’s heart was drastically underdeveloped (both the atrium and ventricle). And there was a large hole between the two sides. As a result, blood that should have been circulating through Kelli’s lungs was going straight into her system without being properly oxygenated.
When she was 11 months old, the tiny girl had her first heart surgery: creating a shunt to increase oxygen to her blood. Doctors emphasized that this was only a temporary “Band-Aid.” When Kelli was nearly three, she had open-heart surgery to create an artificial viaduct that allowed blood to bypass the poorly functioning right ventricle of her heart yet still get to her lungs. It was a longer-term fix but by no means a cure.
The second operation, however, nearly killed her. After developing a dangerous infection, she went downhill so fast that the hospital staff thought she wouldn’t survive. At one point, they even talked to Ana about taking Kelli off life support. Horrified, she refused. “I started singing to Kelli and talking to her,” says Ana. And gradually, the frail little girl improved.
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