Her Mother and Brother Provided a Sigh of Relief

Saving Easter Allen’s life has become a family project. Three operations later, mother and daughter are doing fine. And brother too.

Easter Allen, 28, who lived in Huntington Beach before her health began to deteriorate during the past year, suffers from cystic fibrosis, a debilitating respiratory disease. She had reached the point, doctors believe, that just before the Easter holiday she had less than a week to live.

But early on the morning of Good Friday, March 28, she was wheeled into the operating room at UC San Diego Medical Center to have her two ravaged lungs removed. Her mother, Dale Allen, was wheeled into the next room, so surgeons could remove part of her lung and give it to her daughter. Easter’s brother Josh, 24, was in a third room for surgery similar to his mother’s. Old Super Lungs, the doctors told him.

The surgeons transplanted significant lung sections (lobes) from mother and brother--about one-fourth the breathing capacity of each--into Easter Allen’s body to replace her own lungs.

The surgery was a rare living donor transplant that Dr. Stuart Jamieson, director of heart and lung surgery at the medical center, and his team had performed just once before. He knows of only four medical teams in the world who do it.

“We much prefer a donor who is deceased, where there is no risk to the donor,” Jamieson said. “But Easter’s case was an emergency; we couldn’t wait.”

The result: Jamieson says the transplant was successful, but Easter has had a difficult second week. Her new lungs have not done as well as they did the first week. “We can only take it day to day,” he said. “But Easter is young and strong and very determined. I believe the odds are in our favor.” He is optimistic that she will live a full life once she’s through the crisis.

The Allens, who live in Hemet in Riverside County, say it was God’s will that they step forward to save her.

“Just before the three operations, we all held hands and our minister, Rev. Greg Hepner, led us in prayer,” Dale Allen recalls. “I didn’t know how everything had gone until I got to see Easter later. She was on a respirator, but she was just gleaming. She gave me a huge thumbs up and tried to say ‘I love you’ in a kind of sign language. I just thought, ‘Wow!’ It was an amazing feeling.”

Josh Allen, an assistant manager at a toy store, is recuperating in Hemet and says he feels great. He’s 6 feet 2 and a weightlifter. Doctors told him his lungs were so large that the lobe he gave up for his sister nicely filled up the empty cavity in her chest.

He’s a bubbly young man, and talked excitedly about the ordeal. “Surfing is my life, and they’ve told me I can surf in a few weeks,” he said. “But it wouldn’t matter if I could never surf again. Blood is thicker than seawater. I got my sister back!”

Jamieson said surgeries for the two family donors went well, and they should eventually regain most of the lung capacity they gave up. Dale Allen’s recovery is a slow process. It has likely been delayed by spending each day at her daughter’s side.

“Easter needs me right now,” she explained. “She’s going through high anxiety [this week]. But really, she’s doing great. You should have seen her the week before the operation.”

Easter Allen was born with cystic fibrosis. But it had been in control throughout most of her life. She was a cheerleader in high school and community college.

After school, she worked as a bookkeeper and gave birth to a son, named Gage, who is now 4. A single parent, she had made a home for her son and herself in Huntington Beach. But she began to suffer breathing difficulties and eventually had to return to her family’s home.

Dale Allen credits her daughter with saving her own life: “She was on a waiting list for a lung transplant from an organ donor. But that would take about two years, and Easter wasn’t going to live that long.

“So she started looking into this whole thing, and discovered that it was possible to have living donors.”

Easter Allen came across Pam Dubois of Lake Elsinore, a young woman who had successfully undergone a similar operation. Dubois gave Easter Allen encouragement that it could be done. Once doctors explained to the Allens what would be needed, Easter Allen had no shortage of volunteers. Even Josh’s wife, Liberty, wanted to undergo surgery for her sister-in-law.

“What is just absolutely amazing is that we could donate,” Dale Allen said. “You had to be the same blood type, and it turned out just sheer coincidence that all of us had the same blood.”

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Bob Allen, Easter’s father, was supposed to be the co-donor. But during pre-surgery tests, doctors became worried about a possible heart problem. Dale Allen was found to be more “anatomically correct,” as she was told.

“I wasn’t going to compete in the Olympics anyway,” she quipped.

Easter Allen’s first non-family visitor was Pam Dubois. They cried tears of joy at how well it had turned out.

Bob Allen, a deeply religious man, said it was frightening to see his entire family wheeled into surgery. “But this is what God meant for us to do,” he said. “Really, there is nothing in life that means anything more than family.”

His daughter’s ordeal has affirmed Bob Allen’s faith in community. Easter Allen would not have been eligible for Medicare coverage for the surgery until July. And, as Dale Allen said, “Easter would not have been alive by July.”

So, many of her friends, including Kym Verrilli of Irvine, pitched in to raise money for her. (Verrilli’s dedication to her friend was mentioned in a previous column.) At Norco High School, where Easter Allen had once been so active, students gave up lunch money to raise more than $3,000. “These are the young people that you don’t see much on the TV news,” Bob Allen said. Other fund-raising efforts--former classmate Eva La Rue of TV’s “All My Children” showed up for one--brought the total to more than $10,000 to help defray the costs.

Easter Allen will continue to suffer from cystic fibrosis, but Jamieson says the worst will be over once her body accepts the new lungs. Bob Allen is grateful that his daughter has something to look forward to besides just fighting to remain alive and that she will get a chance to see her son grow up.

One of Easter Allen’s most immediate goals: Her 10th high school reunion is scheduled for May 31. Said Verrilli: “I know Easter well enough to know she’ll do everything she possibly can to be there.”

By the way, they call her Easter because she was born on an Easter Sunday.

“She was also reborn on Easter,” her mother says. That was the Sunday two weeks ago when she was taken off the respirator and began breathing on the new family lungs.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by call-ing the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail tojerry.hicks@latimes.com