Glen Kelley’s journey as a coronary heart transplant recipient got here full circle right this moment in Prague, as he addressed attendees of the Annual Assembly and Scientific Periods of the Worldwide Society for Coronary heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT), together with members of his personal care groups.
As a highschool senior exterior of Peoria, Illinois, Kelley was recognized with stage-4 Hodgkin’s lymphoma and underwent eight months of chemotherapy and radiation. After 10 months in remission, the most cancers returned, and he obtained a bone marrow transplant. Together with his most cancers as soon as once more in remission, he completed school and went on to take pleasure in a particularly energetic life for the following 17 years, snowboarding, biking, climbing mountains, and even working marathons.
Then out of nowhere, Kelley suffered a coronary heart assault at 36. Docs discovered his proper coronary artery almost fully blocked and positioned three stents to prop it open. Over the following decade, his ailing coronary heart would require extra stents, valve replacements, and never one however two coronary artery bypasses on the College of Minnesota Medical Heart in Minneapolis. By 2015, Kelley was in coronary heart failure -; almost definitely the results of the radiation he obtained in his teenagers.
He was positioned on the transplant record and finally transferred to Baylor College Medical Heart in Dallas, the place he obtained a brand new coronary heart in 2016. An unusually lengthy and tough restoration interval adopted, throughout which he suffered kidney failure, a fungal an infection, and two bouts of organ rejection. In 2019, he obtained his second organ transplant, a kidney not directly donated from his youngest son.
I had help alongside the best way from my physicians and healthcare suppliers to volunteers on the help group Second Probability for Life. I do not assume my outcomes would have been almost as profitable with out the help I obtained all through my journey.”
Glen Kelley, coronary heart transplant recipient
Regardless of all his well being issues, Kelley led a profitable profession in IT and advertising and marketing, together with 17 years at IBM. Nevertheless it was by means of his experiences as a affected person that he realized his true calling.
“My metrics modified from how properly I did at my day job to what number of sufferers I may assist,” he mentioned. “Sufferers grew to become my foreign money.”
Kelley devoted himself to supporting sufferers coping with superior coronary heart illness by means of in-person and telephone visitation and help teams, finally serving as president of Second Probability for Life for 4 years. Throughout his tenure, the group created an alliance with the worldwide group Mending Hearts, the world’s the most important peer-to-peer coronary heart affected person help group with 115,000+ members.
With Mended Hearts, Kelley had a chance to proceed working in affected person training and help -; and to turn out to be extra concerned in advocacy and laws on the state and federal ranges. Immediately, he serves because the group’s Affected person Voice and Advocacy Chief.
“Working in advocacy allowed me to assist not one however hundreds of sufferers at a time,” he mentioned.
Immediately, Kelley fills his days with telephone calls to sufferers, in-person visits, and advising. In his new position as Affected person Advocate Trustee on ISHLT Basis Board of Trustees, Kelley will assist to make sure the Basis agenda addresses points that matter most to sufferers with superior coronary heart and lung illness.
His highest calling but could also be serving the US’ new Organ Procurement and Transplantation Community (OPTN). Created final fall by a bipartisan regulation, OPTN is charged with revamping the nation’s organ transplant system. Kelley was elected thoracic affected person consultant to OPTN’s Board of Administrators.
“Sufferers all the time want help, whether or not they realize it or not, in some unspecified time in the future of their journey,” mentioned Kelley. “This motivates me to do the work I do. I wish to empower sufferers by means of help and training and train them tips on how to self-advocate.”
