Rachel Mayer spotlighted in local paper :)
Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2004 3:08 pm
Getting a second chance
Transplant gives woman a future
04 Jun 2004
By Charlie Reed News-Gazette Staff Writer
Three months ago, Rachel Duplessis-Mayer never would have considered buying a home.
It wasn’t a problem with finances or credit that stopped the 21-year old and her husband of two years from looking for a place to start their life together.
For Duplessis-Mayer, a petite blond woman with piercing brown eyes, the future was never a luxury she could afford.
Born with cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that causes life-threatening lung infections, Duplessis-Mayer says she’s always lived each day to the fullest because “tomorrow has never been a guarantee.”
According to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s National Patient Registry, the median age of survival for a cystic fibrosis patient is 33.4 years although as more advances have been made in the treatment of the disease, the number of adults with CF is steadily growing.
But hope seemed lost for Duplessis-Mayer when her health took a turn for the worse in August.
She was dependent on an oxygen tank. While her lung infections grew stronger, her immune system grew weaker.
“I couldn’t even walk across the room without losing my breath,” she said. “I couldn’t do anything really but sit here at the house.”
To make matters worse, Duplessis-Mayer’s CF specialist moved from Orlando to St. Augustine.
With no other adult cystic fibrosis physicians left in Central Florida, Duplessis-Mayer was making the three-hour drive to St. Augustine frequently.
She was forced to quit her job at the Kissimmee Animal Hospital and struggled for every breath.
That’s when she and her husband packed a few belongings, sent their two dogs, Chantilly and Mosaic, to live with relatives and moved to Durham, N.C., in November.
The move was vital because Duplessis-Mayer had been put on a waiting list for a lung transplant list at Duke University Medical Center.
A few months went by while she and her husband lived in a small mobile home near the medical center waiting for a new pair of lungs.
Duplessis-Mayer made friends with other women waiting for lung or other organ transplants.
“We could relate to each other’s problems and it was good to know I wasn’t alone,” she said.
Although she passed rigorous physical examinations required for potential transplant patients, her health steadily deteriorated.
“I was preparing myself for a life without Rachel,” said her husband, Chris Mayer.
But in March, doctors called and told Duplessis-Mayer that a pair of lungs had been donated.
“I didn’t think I was going to get them. They always prepare two patients for one set of lungs and I just knew they wouldn’t be for me,” she said.
She was so convinced the call was a false alarm, she went back to sleep.
But within the hour, Duplessis-Mayer was getting prepped for surgery.
“My husband and I called as many family members as I could,” she said. “I knew if I didn’t get a transplant I was going to die but I was scared that I might not ever wake up. It all happened so fast,” she said.
The average wait for a lung transplant is at least a year and a half. Duplessis-Mayer received hers after four months on the transplant list.
The transplant came just a day after her 21st birthday and just three days before her mother and uncle were scheduled to begin the process to donate parts of their lungs to Duplessis-Mayer.
“I just started shaking and screaming when she called. She told me to stop screaming and start driving,” said her mother, Marie Dexter.
The surgery only took five hours, but for her family the wait was an eternity.
“I was scared too. I had hope but you just never know with a major surgery like that what could go wrong,” said her husband.
But Duplessis-Mayer’s surgery was a success.
Insurance covered the $250,000 surgery and an additional $250,000 in follow-up treatment for Duplessis-Mayer.
Still, the National Transplant Assistance Fund has established an account for Duplessis-Mayer for her ongoing care that includes monthly trips back to North Carolina for treatment.
She has suffered a few minor set backs since her transplant including a lung infection and a stress fracture to her knee.
“I started running before I should have,” she said.
The lung infection forced doctors to put her on an oxygen tank for a few days.
“That was frustrating. I kept telling my doctors, ’normal’ people don’t need oxygen tanks,’” she said.
But the infection soon subsided and now Duplessis-Mayer has more energy than she knows what to do with.
“I literally went from sleeping most of the day to only sleeping two hours a night,” she said.
She has since written a letter to the family of the young girl whose lungs she received.
“I told them I had already been praying for them even before the transplant. I always knew someone was going to lose their life before I would get a chance to live mine,” she said.
For Duplessis-Mayer and her husband, coming back to Kissimmee in April was the happiest day of their lives.
“Once I got here, I remembered everything. The weather and the smells in the air. This is home and it feels good to be back,” Duplessis-Mayer. “We picked up our animals and went home. It was just so nice.”
She credits her faith for helping her through the ordeal.
“My faith in God has helped me stay positive,” she said.
But Duplessis-Mayer takes more than 30 medications and will require them for the rest of her life. The medications, that cost her $600 a month in insurance co-payments, have created an increased risk for cancer, high blood pressure and diabetes.
And because cystic fibrosis is genetic and due to complications associated with the transplant, she can never bear children.
And although her lungs are free of cystic fibrosis, she must make monthly trips over the next year to North Carolina for checkups.
But Duplessis-Mayer said she has more hope than ever.
Just a few months ago she could barely get around the house. She now works out five days a week at the YMCA.
For Duplessis-Mayer, small goals are the keys to success.
“My next goal is to take a step (aerobics) class,” she said.
Duplessis-Mayer said she would also like to talk to anyone she can about the power of organ donation.
“I understand a lot of people don’t want to think about donating their organs because it means they have to think about dying. But I hope they realize it’s about saving lives, too,” she said.
Each day about 70 people receive an organ transplant, but another 16 people on the waiting list die because not enough organs are available, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Before her transplant, Duplessis-Mayer never thought too far ahead.
“I had to take one day at a time, because that’s all I had,” she said.
Now Duplessis-Mayer is looking forward to doing all “the little things people take for granted.”
“Being a young woman and newly married, I felt bad not being able to cook my husband dinner. He worked and did everything without complaining. I am so happy that I can take care of him the way he’s taken care of me. It feels so good to support my husband,” she said.
And for the first time, she and her husband have plans to buy a house, take a vacation and map out a plan for the future.
“A whole new world has opened up to me.”
Transplant gives woman a future
04 Jun 2004
By Charlie Reed News-Gazette Staff Writer
Three months ago, Rachel Duplessis-Mayer never would have considered buying a home.
It wasn’t a problem with finances or credit that stopped the 21-year old and her husband of two years from looking for a place to start their life together.
For Duplessis-Mayer, a petite blond woman with piercing brown eyes, the future was never a luxury she could afford.
Born with cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that causes life-threatening lung infections, Duplessis-Mayer says she’s always lived each day to the fullest because “tomorrow has never been a guarantee.”
According to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s National Patient Registry, the median age of survival for a cystic fibrosis patient is 33.4 years although as more advances have been made in the treatment of the disease, the number of adults with CF is steadily growing.
But hope seemed lost for Duplessis-Mayer when her health took a turn for the worse in August.
She was dependent on an oxygen tank. While her lung infections grew stronger, her immune system grew weaker.
“I couldn’t even walk across the room without losing my breath,” she said. “I couldn’t do anything really but sit here at the house.”
To make matters worse, Duplessis-Mayer’s CF specialist moved from Orlando to St. Augustine.
With no other adult cystic fibrosis physicians left in Central Florida, Duplessis-Mayer was making the three-hour drive to St. Augustine frequently.
She was forced to quit her job at the Kissimmee Animal Hospital and struggled for every breath.
That’s when she and her husband packed a few belongings, sent their two dogs, Chantilly and Mosaic, to live with relatives and moved to Durham, N.C., in November.
The move was vital because Duplessis-Mayer had been put on a waiting list for a lung transplant list at Duke University Medical Center.
A few months went by while she and her husband lived in a small mobile home near the medical center waiting for a new pair of lungs.
Duplessis-Mayer made friends with other women waiting for lung or other organ transplants.
“We could relate to each other’s problems and it was good to know I wasn’t alone,” she said.
Although she passed rigorous physical examinations required for potential transplant patients, her health steadily deteriorated.
“I was preparing myself for a life without Rachel,” said her husband, Chris Mayer.
But in March, doctors called and told Duplessis-Mayer that a pair of lungs had been donated.
“I didn’t think I was going to get them. They always prepare two patients for one set of lungs and I just knew they wouldn’t be for me,” she said.
She was so convinced the call was a false alarm, she went back to sleep.
But within the hour, Duplessis-Mayer was getting prepped for surgery.
“My husband and I called as many family members as I could,” she said. “I knew if I didn’t get a transplant I was going to die but I was scared that I might not ever wake up. It all happened so fast,” she said.
The average wait for a lung transplant is at least a year and a half. Duplessis-Mayer received hers after four months on the transplant list.
The transplant came just a day after her 21st birthday and just three days before her mother and uncle were scheduled to begin the process to donate parts of their lungs to Duplessis-Mayer.
“I just started shaking and screaming when she called. She told me to stop screaming and start driving,” said her mother, Marie Dexter.
The surgery only took five hours, but for her family the wait was an eternity.
“I was scared too. I had hope but you just never know with a major surgery like that what could go wrong,” said her husband.
But Duplessis-Mayer’s surgery was a success.
Insurance covered the $250,000 surgery and an additional $250,000 in follow-up treatment for Duplessis-Mayer.
Still, the National Transplant Assistance Fund has established an account for Duplessis-Mayer for her ongoing care that includes monthly trips back to North Carolina for treatment.
She has suffered a few minor set backs since her transplant including a lung infection and a stress fracture to her knee.
“I started running before I should have,” she said.
The lung infection forced doctors to put her on an oxygen tank for a few days.
“That was frustrating. I kept telling my doctors, ’normal’ people don’t need oxygen tanks,’” she said.
But the infection soon subsided and now Duplessis-Mayer has more energy than she knows what to do with.
“I literally went from sleeping most of the day to only sleeping two hours a night,” she said.
She has since written a letter to the family of the young girl whose lungs she received.
“I told them I had already been praying for them even before the transplant. I always knew someone was going to lose their life before I would get a chance to live mine,” she said.
For Duplessis-Mayer and her husband, coming back to Kissimmee in April was the happiest day of their lives.
“Once I got here, I remembered everything. The weather and the smells in the air. This is home and it feels good to be back,” Duplessis-Mayer. “We picked up our animals and went home. It was just so nice.”
She credits her faith for helping her through the ordeal.
“My faith in God has helped me stay positive,” she said.
But Duplessis-Mayer takes more than 30 medications and will require them for the rest of her life. The medications, that cost her $600 a month in insurance co-payments, have created an increased risk for cancer, high blood pressure and diabetes.
And because cystic fibrosis is genetic and due to complications associated with the transplant, she can never bear children.
And although her lungs are free of cystic fibrosis, she must make monthly trips over the next year to North Carolina for checkups.
But Duplessis-Mayer said she has more hope than ever.
Just a few months ago she could barely get around the house. She now works out five days a week at the YMCA.
For Duplessis-Mayer, small goals are the keys to success.
“My next goal is to take a step (aerobics) class,” she said.
Duplessis-Mayer said she would also like to talk to anyone she can about the power of organ donation.
“I understand a lot of people don’t want to think about donating their organs because it means they have to think about dying. But I hope they realize it’s about saving lives, too,” she said.
Each day about 70 people receive an organ transplant, but another 16 people on the waiting list die because not enough organs are available, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Before her transplant, Duplessis-Mayer never thought too far ahead.
“I had to take one day at a time, because that’s all I had,” she said.
Now Duplessis-Mayer is looking forward to doing all “the little things people take for granted.”
“Being a young woman and newly married, I felt bad not being able to cook my husband dinner. He worked and did everything without complaining. I am so happy that I can take care of him the way he’s taken care of me. It feels so good to support my husband,” she said.
And for the first time, she and her husband have plans to buy a house, take a vacation and map out a plan for the future.
“A whole new world has opened up to me.”
I thought I'd post it to let you guys see it.. 
