Laguna Hills Nurse Awaits Heart-Lung Transplant

A Laguna Hills nurse who for 12 years has worked to save lives now lies tethered to a lung machine at UC San Diego Medical Center, waiting for an organ transplant needed to save her own life.

Catherine Renee Williams, 34, has spent a month at the hospital, while doctors search to find suitable donors for a lung or heart-lung transplant. She suffers from Eisenmenger’s Complex, a rare disease that has left a hole the size of a silver dollar in her heart and has also damaged her lungs.

“I’m not scared of the surgery, but I don’t like the thought of dying yet,” said Williams, a former mountain climber, scuba diver, amateur ballet dance and weightlifter, who stands 5 feet 2 inches and weighs 100 pounds.

“I’m really mad,” she said. “The waiting is real hard. It gets frustrating. They’ve just moved me to my fourth room.”

Because of the severity of her illness, Williams is first in line at the hospital for a lung or heart-lung transplant, out of three such patients in the county, said Dr. Stuart Jamieson , who leads the UC San Diego Medical Center team that would operate if a donor surfaces.

“She was born with a hole in her heart, and blood is coming through (that) hole, which has generated high pressure in her lungs,” Jamieson said.

“If we were simply to patch the hole, it wouldn’t work,” Jamieson said, explaining that the resulting pressure on the lungs would cause them to explode. However, he added, as Williams’ condition worsens and the time to find an ideal donor diminishes, there is a “very rare” surgery that could repair her heart in conjunction with a lung transplant.

Complicating Williams’ situation is a severe shortage of donor organs in San Diego County. Dr. Michael Kay, director of the International Society for Heart Transplant Registry in San Diego, said the area’s decreasing donor pool could be because seat belt laws have contributed to fewer accident fatalities. At the same time, he said, more accident victims may have been infected with the AIDS virus, making them ineligible donors.

Meanwhile, Williams’ parents said they have spent nearly all their money moving from Tennessee to an apartment three blocks from the hospital. Her fiance, Brian Bora of Laguna Hills, spends his days in the hospital and works nights as a bartender.

“Every week that goes by, we say, ‘maybe this week someone will donate a lung,’ ” said William’s mother Shirley King, 56, who keeps a nightly vigil in a plastic chair beside her daughter’s bed. “This is pretty heartbreaking. She was always perky, full of life, and now she could die.”

Williams’ former co-workers at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in Laguna Hills, where she worked as an obstetric nurse, were instrumental in providing the money for her medical bills. They raised $56,000, which was then matched by the hospital, said Paul Henry, vice president of human resources.

“We just couldn’t sit by and do nothing,” Henry said, explaining that the hospital’s insurance provider wouldn’t cover medical expenses because the heart problem was considered a pre-existing condition. Williams also had worked only five months at the hospital, making her ineligible for full benefits, he added.

According to Williams, two examinations by specialists in past years failed to detect the heart defect. It was not until last September, when she saw her fingers turning blue after helping deliver a baby, that a cardiologist at the hospital found she had Eisenmenger’s Complex.

And although four lungs have been available to Williams in the last two months, the organs were rejected by doctors because they were the wrong size or blood type, Jamieson said.

“It stinks,” Williams said of her ordeal. “It doesn’t bother me being one of the first (in San Diego) to have this operation. What is my choice? I’m dying.”

Times staff writers Greg Johnson and Wendy Paulson contributed to this story.