By By ANDY HAMILTON / Dowagiac Daily News
It was natural for Lois Rangel to pass the gift on to her friend.
The yellow pin that read "I survived damn near everything" was given to the Dowagiac resident June 2, 2005, on the one-year anniversary of her heart and kidney transplant.
Just a few weeks ago, on July 17, Rangel passed the pin to Kathy Casey, another Dowagiac resident and heart transplant recipient.
"When we talked to the doctors … they're like that is so weird," Casey said, referring to the physicians at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., which is where both women received their transplants.
They were also cared for by many of the same doctors.
Rangel and Casey first met in 2002.
Rangel's daughter Heidi Mott was purchasing a house from Casey, of Cressy and Everett Real Estate.
Rangel was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease a short time later.
She said the radiation and chemotherapy treatments she received affected both her heart and her kidney.
Rangel had cardiomyopathy, which occurs when the lining of the heart becomes inflamed and the muscle's function decreases.
She was told she would need both a heart and a kidney transplant.
Rangel was placed on a transplant list. She said she waited for a donor for about one year.
At 3 a.m. on June 2, 2004, she got the call. A plane from Minnesota met Rangel at the airport in South Bend, Ind.
By 6 a.m. she was at the Mayo Clinic waiting to go into surgery.
"It was like a big surprise to me," Rangel said.
The proper heart had to match her blood type, body size and her arteries, she said. The kidney transplant was performed at the same time.
"I didn't think the heart transplant was as painful as the kidney," Rangel said.
Doctors had to work through so much more muscle and tissue to access the kidney, she said.
Transplanting the heart required going through the sternum.
Rangel said doctors' orders were for her to stay in Rochester for 90 days following the surgery.
The physicians also required her to make occasional return trips to Mayo even years after the surgery.
It was shortly after Rangel's surgery when Casey found out she would also need a heart transplant.
She, too, had fought cancer.
Casey said doctors had to perform a lumpectomy to remove her breast cancer and while doing so were forced to scrape her sternum. The combination of the surgery and other cancer treatments weakened Casey's heart and she too was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy.
While Casey waited to hear of a matching donor, she got a call from Rangel. Casey said the two talked prior to her surgery about what to expect before, during and after the transplant.
"They had kind of gone over everything here, but it was nice to have some reassurance," Casey said from her hotel in Rochester.
Rangel said she saw Casey at Relay For Life at the Cass County Fairgrounds. Casey, Rangel said, wasn't looking too good.
"I told her 'You're time is coming. Just be patient and it will be here,'" Rangel said. "They'll bluntly tell you, sometimes a heart doesn't come. That's why you need to press for more people to donate your organs."
Casey's time did come.
At 5 a.m. on Saturday, July 15 she received a call at home from Minnesota. The doctors had found a match.
Casey said she had previously given the clinic a list of 10 to 12 pilots in the Dowagiac area that were available to fly her to Rochester. The name at the top of the list was Rock Kitzer.
"I graduated with him and he said 'You call me first,'" Rangel said. "It was 5 a.m. and I thought he would probably be home."
Kitzer was home, Casey said, and the Mayo Clinic made all the necessary phone calls and arrangements. Before too long, Casey and her husband Richard were passengers on a priority med flight that traveled straight over Lake Michigan to Minnesota.
"I was probably at a point of shock," Casey said, admitting she did not remember much about the flight.
Casey said she expected to go through a couple hours of preparation before the surgery.
"By the time I got there they were waiting" in the operating room, she said. "They said, 'We don't have time to chat.'"
Two days after the transplant Casey was again contacted by Rangel. Rangel's two-year check up at the Mayo Clinic had been scheduled for Monday, July 17 and she was headed to Minnesota.
"It was just amazing when I got her phone call," Casey said.
"I was her first visitor. It was really neat," Rangel said. "I thought, 'Well that makes my trip worth while.'"
Once again, Rangel was there to answer Casey's questions and explain the expectations.
"Just stay alive," Rangel said she told Casey. "Don't overdo it. It's a lot of TV watching and card playing."
But, it isn't all relaxation, Casey said. Since the transplant she has been back at the Mayo Clinic every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for check-ups. Tuesdays and Thursdays are for physical therapy.
"They want you to exercise that heart and build it back up," Casey said.
On Saturday, Casey will have been in Rochester for three weeks.
She said she understands there will be side effects to the surgery. She knows she may experience some jitters and problems writing. But, she said it won't stop her from enjoying how she feels now.
"I feel wonderful," she said. "I can breathe. I can talk on the phone without saying 'I can't breathe.' Now, I can just carry on a conversation."
I want to thank everybody for all their prayers the last years. If it wasn't for that it probably wouldn't have happened. Oh, and not to forget that I am here for three months."
Casey said any of her friends or family who wish to write to her in Minnesota can contact her at the following address:
First Avenue Suites
Kathy Casey
100 First Avenue S.W. Room 302
Rochester, MN, 55902