Heart Recipient Gives Back by Guiding Donor Families
In May 2004, Kelly Ellinger sat in a small Catholic church in Stow, Ohio, listening to a presentation about a trip to the Holy Land. When her mobile phone rang, Kelly glanced at the number and her hands began to shake. It was the call she'd been anticipating for a month: A donor heart was available.
Kelly has a rare systemic autoimmune disease called Churg-Strauss Syndrome. She began suffering from sinus allergies and asthma in her early twenties, and the symptoms grew progressively worse. In the winter of 2003, Kelly thought she had the flu: She was achy, tired and congested. After a round of antibiotics and steroids, her condition improved…temporarily.
About a month later, things started to act up again, recalls Kelly, who was living alone and working as an interior designer. She got a terrible pain her back that spread a few days later into her chest. After one restless night on the couch, Kelly drove to the hospital, where an EKG revealed the 35-year-old was having a heart attack.
Kelly was rushed to a larger hospital and taken straight to the heart catheterization laboratory, where numerous doctors convened. "I could tell they were baffled and that something was terribly wrong," says Kelly. "I saw my heart on the screen. It looked like it was quivering."
Physicians inserted a balloon pump to help Kelly's heart, and she was moved to the intensive care unit. Her condition worsened through the night, and the next morning a priest arrived at the bedside of the dying patient. "It was almost like I was in someone else's body," says Kelly. "I knew he was anointing me." But her family would not give up. They insisted she be moved to a hospital renowned for its cardiac care.
At the new hospital, Kelly received another balloon pump and her condition stabilized. After three weeks, and lots of medical tests and speculation, Kelly was diagnosed with Churg Strauss. She began steroid treatment, but the damage to her heart was severe. She moved in with her father, where she lived for more than a year wearing an external defibrillator in case her heart stopped. She no longer worked and slept 18 hours a day.
One month after being placed on the organ waiting list, Kelly received her new heart on May 2, 2004. Within hours, she knew the transplantation was life-altering. "My fingers were pink, and my lips were no longer blue," says Kelly. "I just felt better." Three days later, she was on a treadmill. That summer, she played softball.
Kelly's new heart led to a new career, too. After earning a degree in social work, she joined Lifebanc as an in-house transplant coordinator for Akron City Hospital/Summa Health System. She counsels and educates potential donor families for Lifebanc, northeast Ohio's organ procurement and tissue recovery agency.
She hopes that families in the midst of tragedy decide to donate their loved ones' organs. "If you can't make your family member better, what's the next best thing?" says Kelly. "Let's save some people!" But she respects the choices made by families, no matter what they decide.
A year after her transplant, Kelly journeyed to Israel, a voyage that seemed a pipe dream when she sat in the Stow church just 13 months earlier. The highlight of her trip was being baptized in the Jordan River. "I was baptized in a Catholic church as a baby," says Kelly. "But being baptized in the Jordan River after going through heart transplantation was amazing!"
You have the power to save lives by becoming a registered organ and tissue donor right now or by saying "yes" when renewing your driver license or state ID at the BMV.
