Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Terry Rindfleisch: Milestones even more special for transplant recipient
Carol Lee never expected to celebrate her 60th birthday, or her 30th wedding anniversary.
But the La Crosse woman celebrated both milestones within the past six weeks.
And she will mark the 14th anniversary of her heart transplant at University of Wisconsin-Madison Hospitals on July 27. She received the heart of a 16-year-old girl who had died from injuries in a car crash.
When she had the transplant, Lee said she didn’t know how long she had to live. The life expectancy of her heart back then was 15 years at best, she said.
“There’s not a day that I don’t talk about my transplant without shedding a tear,” Lee said. “I was 46 when I had the transplant. I thought I would never see 60.
“The 14 years have given me so much,” she said. “I’ve lived longer to see my son do this and that. I’ve gone places and seen good and bad things happen to my family.”
She said she has lost friends and gained new ones, and she has received so much support since her transplant.
“Every morning I walk through the house and I say I’m here for another day,” Lee said.
Lee said her heart is doing well, although she has experienced other medical problems including acid reflux and skin cancer.
“But at my annual visit last year, my heart was doing so well that I cut down on my anti-rejection medicine,” she said.
Now her goal is to live to be 65 years old. “Then after that, another five years,” she said.
Lee gets emotional when she talks about her donor because she knows the donor’s family has endured the horrible pain of losing a loved one.
“There’s not a day or holiday I don’t think about the family and what a gift I have,” Lee said.
As a teen, Lee had rheumatic fever. She had open heart surgery to replace a heart valve with an artificial valve in 1968, when she was 19. She had no other heart problems for 24 years, until July 15, 1991, when she experienced pain in her chest and shoulder.
Doctors found a different heart valve leaking and her heart enlarged. Lee was on a transplant list for two years.
I have followed Lee’s story since her transplant. She tells everyone that families need to talk about their wishes concerning organ donations as well as putting their wishes in writing in a living will and in their medical records.
Families at the very least need to sit down and talk about it so their wishes are clear, she said.
“Your organs are the greatest gift you can leave behind for someone,” Lee said. “An organ donation changes lives and makes life possible for someone else.
“I’m here because someone cared enough to donate a loved one’s organs,” she said.
“It’s given me 14 precious years.”
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