Thirty-six-year-old Kelley, wife, mother of three young boys and fitness buff, was doing the first sit-up with her personal trainer on a Thursday evening when she noticed some discomfort in her chest. On Friday, in some pain, Kelley attended parent-teacher conferences. Early Saturday morning she awoke with severe pain in her chest and arms. Kelley, who rarely took medicine, asked her husband, Darren, to bring her some Tylenol. Not able to find any (there were six bottles of it in the house at the time) Darren brought her aspirin. By Monday morning when Kelley went outside to kiss the boys good-bye as they left for school, the cold air triggered another bout of severe chest pain and she went back to bed. When Darren swung by the house later to check on Kelley, he found her still in bed and white as a sheet.
The aspirin she took early Saturday and possibly the old, green pick-up truck with the worn-out suspension Darren was driving that day probably helped save Kelley's life long enough to get her to the hospital in their hometown of Victoria, Texas. "We later joked that the ‘green ambulance' was like a defibrillator that kept me alive on the way to the emergency room!" Kelley says.
Kelley had a blood clot in her heart and needed double bypass surgery. It would be a difficult procedure, partly because of the location of the clot and partly because of Kelley's small size and relative youth: the veins in her legs were almost too small to use in her heart. And, because of the length of time between the onset of Kelley's chest discomfort and her arrival at the hospital, she had severe heart failure and numerous life-threatening complications.
Needing specialized care not available in Victoria, Darren and Kelley chose Dr. Michael Kwan and Dr. Chandra Kunavarapu, board-certified Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiologists with Texas Transplant Physician Group in San Antonio, Texas, where, coincidentally, Kelley's sister had just signed a contract on a new house fifteen minutes away from the hospital.
Kelley needed a new heart, but she wasn't strong enough to survive a transplant even if a suitable one could be found for her. Kelly's blood was so full of antibodies that would make it nearly impossible to find a match.
Dr. Kwan's and Dr. Kunavarapu's strategy was to get chemotherapy for Kelley to try to clear some of the antibodies from her blood, to use medication to strengthen her heart, a defibrillator vest and, maybe later, a heart pump-;an LVAD (left ventricular assist device) to keep Kelley alive and hopefully rebuild her heart enough to withstand a transplant.
Like the drive to the hospital in Victoria, Kelley faced a very bumpy road. Her heart was enlarging so much it pushed her trachea sideways. She had difficulty eating and grew weaker. She was in excruciating pain. Her condition was so critical Dr. Kunavarapu asked Darren to bring in the boys to say good-bye to their mom.
But Kelley's faith, her love for her family, the support of her friends and family kept her going. "I kept thinking of my three boys. I kept thinking that God is here. People were praying for me and I felt uplifted from everyone. I had no reason to doubt I would get better," Kelley says.
Once the LVAD was implanted and her blood was cleared of enough antibodies to make a match more likely, Kelley improved enough to be listed for a transplant.
There were a couple false starts. "One time we got a phone call that there might be a heart, but it turned out that someone sicker needed it. I wasn't worried, though, because the LVAD was working fine. I just prayed for their soul and waited," says Kelley. Another time the family was en route to San Antonio from Victoria when they got a call that the heart wasn't a perfect-enough match. The boys were devastated, but Kelley reassured them there would be another heart for her.
Finally, 50 weeks after feeling chest pain from the sit-up, Kelley and Darren were awakened by a phone call at 1am: there might be a heart for her. Possibly because of the previous false alarms, possibly because of their faith, they both fell back into a deep, peaceful sleep. Later that morning, they would learn there was a perfect heart for Kelley. "I heard later it was the prettiest heart they had ever seen," says Kelley. "And as soon as it transplanted it filled up with blood and started pumping all on its own!"
But because of Kelley's antibodies, everyone knew the risk was high she could reject the new heart. Before the biopsy to check for likely signs of rejection a week after the transplant, Dr. Kwan cautioned Kelley not to get her hopes up about going home soon. "After the biopsy he came in my room looking like a kid in a candy store! He was grinning from ear to ear and I just knew that heart was meant for me!" Kelley says.
She would also learn a few details about her new heart-;that it came from a young woman and that she, like Kelley, was a Roman Catholic. For Kelley, it made their connection even more profound and sacred. "I know she's part of me. When I take communion, I take it for me and for her," Kelley says.
Today, Kelley is a cub master, is training to walk the San Antonio Rock ‘n' Roll Half Marathon on November 13 and "is doing what every wife and mother does-;living God's plan!" she says.
Texas Transplant Physician Group serves patients at Texas Transplant Institute's Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Program on the campus of Methodist Heart Hospital in San Antonio, Texas. Dr. Michael Kwan and Dr. Chandra Kunavarapu are San Antonio's only full-time Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiologists.