Waiting for a Miracle (page 4 of 4)

Miraculous Recovery

Kelli was put on the transplant waiting list on November 30, 2005, when she was 21. “Being on the list is no guarantee of getting an organ in time,” says Dr. Colquhoun. The problem is that the number of patients who need transplants greatly exceeds the number of organs available. “So people die on the list,” he says. In fact, about 18 patients die every day waiting for organs.

There was nothing to do but wait. Doctors told the Jaunsens that Kelli could survive for about a year without a transplant. But as the mark approached, the family and the Cedars team were nervous. No one knew when the balance might tip and Kelli would become too sick for the surgery. “The fear was constant,” says Robert, who slept on a cot outside Kelli’s bedroom so he could hear the slightest sound she made during the night. “Every morning,” he says, “the first thing I’d do was check to make sure she was breathing.”

The waiting finally paid off on February 1, 2007, one year and two months after Kelli had first been listed. Robert Jaunsen got the call on his cell phone at about five in the morning. “This is it,” Robert said when he woke Kelli. “We have to go.” But suddenly, after years of being the brave girl, Kelli was terrified. “I grabbed my cats, wrapped myself in my sheets and said, ‘I’m not going.’” Then she started to sob. “I kept thinking most likely I’ll die during the operation,” she remembers. Of course, Kelli would definitely die without it. But in that emotional moment, logic went out the window. “They almost had to carry me out of my room.”

In the end, Kelli picked herself up and walked with shaky dignity to the car. The Jaunsens made the 130-mile trip in a little over two hours. “We put Shania Twain on the CD player,” says Robert. And as they drove through the pale desert landscape, a huge winter moon glowed just above the horizon. “The moon was the thing that calmed me down,” Kelli says. “It sounds weird. But it was pointing the way, saying it’s going to be fine.”

The first half of the operation was performed by the heart team. Then, once the heart was in place, the liver team took over. Even by transplant standards, says Dr. Czer, it was tricky. “With congenital heart disease, the blood vessels are huge, because of the pressure. So it was like operating in a minefield.” Plus, Kelli’s blood would barely coagulate because of liver problems, so there was the risk that any bleeding couldn’t be stopped. The surgery lasted 18 hours, and then Dr. Colquhoun came out to the waiting room—everything looked perfect, he told Robert and Ana.

There was one more frightening emergency five days later, when Kelli began bleeding internally. “It was very close and scary,” says Dr. Colquhoun. But the bleeding was stopped, and within hours Kelli was recovering in the ICU. Finally she was moved into a normal hospital room, and “from there,” Robert says, “her recovery was nothing short of miraculous.”

In the end, Kelli didn’t need the mystery Good Samaritan’s money. Before the surgery, Kelli had applied for Social Security, making her eligible for Medicare, which—to everyone’s surprise—ultimately paid for the transplants. Yet by that time, she and the mystery woman had become close friends. They even made a celebratory, post-transplant trip to Las Vegas. Says Kelli, “She’s like my soul sister or grandma.”

As Kelli’s health improves week after week, her parents’ relief is palpable. “Now I have a very, very big weight lifted off my shoulders,” says Ana, “because finally I know my daughter’s going to be all right.”

Dr. Czer says that Kelli has “a chance for a relatively normal life,” although there have been too few heart-liver transplant patients to generalize much. As for Kelli, she is just starting to plan her future and would like to go into veterinary science. “But I hate math,” she says with a laugh. So maybe making wildlife documentaries will be her thing. “Mostly,” Kelli says with her dazzling smile, “I’m glad to be here. And I take everything a day at a time.”

From Reader's Digest - November 2007

 

• • National Health Care
• • Medical Dramas
• • Miracles
• Heart Disease
• • Survival Stories

• Husband and Wife Transplants
• When her husband faced a life-threatening condition, she didn't know she'd be next.
• 
• Living Lung Donors Save a Teenager's Life
• Matt Joyce's lungs were failing him. Then two strangers came forward.
• 
• Wife Donates a Kidney to Her Husband
• When my mother donated a kidney to my father, she gave him, and their marriage, a new life.
• 
• Mom Undergoes Aggressive Treatment for Scleroderma
• The single mom from Texas was dying. But the procedure that could cure her could also kill her.
• 

• Be Inspired
• 10 Celebrities Who Give Back
• 7 Amazing Stories, $700,000 to Charity
• Virginia Cervasio: Making It Matter
• PLUS:
• Quiz: What's Your Celebrity Cause IQ?