A new lease on life

Elise Gee

NEWPORT BEACH--Getting her toenails painted red, white and blue is not

required as part of Inger Jessen’s training for the World Transplant

Games.

But it reflects her renewed joy for life since getting a new heart two

years ago.

Jessen, 57, began swimming at Newport Beach’s YMCA four months after

transplant surgery in 1997. In two weeks, she will fly to Budapest,

Hungary, to compete in the 12th World Transplant Games as one of 62

members on Team USA.

“I think it’s very important for the world to see how much we can do,”

said Jessen, a grandmother from Huntington Beach.

To really understand the magnitude of what she can do, one must

understand what she could not do before her operation.

Jessen suffered a heart attack in 1981 at age 39. Two years later, she

had double-bypass surgery. In 1985, she had an angioplasty. In 1991, she

had a triple bypass and a valve repair. In 1994, she had stint surgery.

“Then they said, ‘That’s it,”’ she said.

Her heart was beyond repair. She would need a transplant.

Jessen spent months at Hoag Hospital awaiting a heart. At her lowest

point, she could not walk from her car to the house without running out

of breath.

“When you can’t do anything--you can’t walk; you can’t lift anything--you

get kind of depressed,” Jessen said.

As Jessen recovered, her daughter, Rikke Hanson, began talking to some of

the clients who came into her nail salon. Among them was Costa Mesa

resident Phyllis Wolverton, who was taking a water aerobics class at the

Newport Beach YMCA.

“We kept bugging her; her daughter kept bugging her, and we finally got

her to the YMCA,” Wolverton said.

Now, Jessen trains 12 hours a week at the YMCA and at Golden West College

for the 50- and 100-meter breaststrokes. She has also relearned diving,

something she hasn’t done since she was a child.

“Just in the last four weeks I’ve seen major improvements,” said Mike

Ruffner, Jessen’s coach at Golden West College. “We decided we were going

to try to go for the gold.”

It was the heart transplant that made the real difference. All Jessen

knows about her donor is that he was a young man who had been in a car

accident, who had the same blood type and was about the same height and

weight.

She wonders if the new aversion to coffee she developed after the

transplant maybe has something to do with him, but it’s probably the

anti-rejection medication she’s taking, Jessen said.

She has tried writing to the man’s family to tell them how much his

donation has meant to her. Jessen’s son died at 30 from a similar heart

condition.

Jessen said that she hopes her participation in the World Transplant

games will raise awareness about the need for organ donations. Last year

there were 20,961 transplants in the United States, the United Network

for Organ Sharing said. But an estimated 61,000 more people are waiting

for a transplant, it said.

Barbara Eklund, the nurse who heads the Transplant Clinic and Support

Group at Hoag Hospital, has seen the way the quality of life for Jessen

and other patients has improved.

Many potential donors are people who have been in accidents. They walk

out the door in the morning thinking they’ll be back but never make it,

Ekland said.

“One good thing that can come out of that tragedy is a 10-year-old can

get a new heart; a 50-year-old with grandchildren on the way could get a

new liver; a Cystic Fibrosis patient could get a new lung,” she said.

Or someone like Jessen can just get a new lease on life.

Jessen said she has started to do things now, just because she can.

“There’s no excuse any longer to just sit there,” she said.

swimmer