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Jan has been an ICU nurse for 20 years, working to provide patients with the best quality of care and life that she can. This has never been just a job for her, it has been her dream and passion from the time she was 8 years old. 10 years ago, she began to have trouble doing her job, constantly running short of breath with her heart racing. She was soon diagnosed with HOCM, a disease that causes the heart to grow too much, to the point where it will eventually smother itself.In October 2011, Jan had her pacemaker placed in. Her doctors were hopeful that this would prevent her condition from getting worse. Unfortunately, infection set it the week after, putting her back in critical condition. This treatment was only the first step in a series of unfortunate developments. In May of 2012, she went in for her first open heart surgery where her care team surgically removed a portion of her heart tissue, hoping to give the heart enough room to beat effectively. She would go in for her third surgery to remove more tissue that had regrown in November 2017. After that, there wasn't any more regrowth thankfully.
Being a single mother to her 5 children would have been challenging enough in and of itself; but when she was out of work for 2-4 months at a time over this period of 6 years, well that made things much harder. Through it all, though, she did everything she could to help provide and care for both her family and friends, with little regard to her own worsening health problems.
Each of these surgeries and treatments was meant to be her last one. She was meant to be better again, but then in December 2019 she was admitted to the hospital for shortness of breath and found out that she was in end-stage heart failure. While the final surgery did its job well, and the surgical team was beyond amazing, there was simply too much scar tissue in her heart for it to beat the way it needed to. She was informed that she would need a heart transplant as soon as possible.
Her doctors did not believe that any other procedure would help any longer. With her children grown and finally having the time to truly commit to her own treatment instead of her patients', she agreed to the transplant. She went through several rounds of chemotherapy so that her immune system could be suppressed enough to receive a new heart. In November, she finished her last round of treatment and all that was left to do was wait for a donor.
On February 13th, 2021, My mom got a call from the transplant team in San Diego, CA saying that a donor had been found and to immediately come to the hospital to begin surgery.
The transplant was a resounding success and my mom is recovering well. She will have to stay in the dorms here on campus for the first 90 days that she is recovering. So far her spirits have been high and she is looking forward to her new lease on life.
As great as this has been though, we need help. The costs of the dorm, her medical bills, food, and her own home have been piling up. Her husband, Chad, has had to keep working in El Centro to try and maintain their home. She needs 24/7 supervision and care while located within an hour of the hospital for the next 3 months. Since their home is 2 hours away, all of her children have taken time to come out and provide that support in 2 week intervals. The plane tickets, gas, transport to and from weekly doctor's appointments and biopsies have added up more than we could have ever prepared for. The dorm costs $60 a day and we have been making by with $20 a week for groceries and necessities here on campus. The plane tickets have been about $600 on average. Even all of that doesn't take into account the gas to get her to and from her appointments, the bills from the surgery and upcoming rehabilitation, her home where her youngest child and husband live, or any of those other associated costs.
$20,000 is what we are hoping for, it will give us the ability to pay off the dorms, plane tickets, some of the treatment costs, transportation fees, hotels, and other necessities. Even if we only reach a small portion of that goal, it could still be a literally life-saving amount of help.It's been a tight struggle, and while mom is excited to go back to work and helping people, the reality is that she won't be able to for quite a while. We know that this past year has been hard on everyone with the pandemic, and we know that we can and will find a way to make it through, but if you could spare even a dollar, that could make a world of difference for our family.
Organizer and beneficiary
Jan Buchanan
Beneficiary