Effort woman makes the most out of second chance

By Carol O'Neill

Pocono Life Writer

August 28, 2006

Jennifer Fisher of Effort is fresh from competing in the Transplant Olympics in Kentucky. Three years ago she got a new heart in Philadelphia. David Kidwell/Pocono Record

For 17 years Jennifer Fisher enjoyed good health. Playing a strenuous game of field hockey was no problem for the energetic Effort resident.

But toward the end of her senior year at Pleasant Valley High School, Fisher was suddenly suffering from heart failure.

"I just couldn't breathe anymore," Fisher said.

Fisher's family doctor ordered a CAT scan to find out why her lungs were filling with fluid. The scan showed an enlarged heart. An echocardiogram showed heart failure. Immediately, Fisher was transported by ambulance from Pocono Medical Center to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, where more tests showed Fisher's heart was functioning at only 15 percent.

After six days in the hospital, Fisher returned home with the hope that medication would keep her heart from failing again.

After high school graduation, Fisher underwent a mitral valve repair. Doctors believe a virus apparently had damaged the heart.

In the fall of 2002, Fisher went off to Penn State, but by the spring her heart was failing again. Knowing something was wrong, she immediately returned to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital where her previous surgery had been performed. This time her heart was functioning at only 5 percent. After numerous tests to determine eligibility, Fisher was put on a heart transplant list. Five days later, she had a new heart.

"It was April 13, 2003," Fisher said. "It happened really fast. It really wasn't scary. Everybody down there was just great."

Fisher doesn't know much about the donor except that he was a 12-year-old boy from South Carolina.

Recovery went well. In no time Fisher was calling her friends on the telephone and ordering from McDonald's. After a week in the hospital, Fisher went home to recuperate, returning once a week for checkups.

In May, six weeks after her surgery, Fisher attended Pleasant Valley's senior prom, and then -- with doctor's permission -- headed for Hershey Park, where she went on all the rides.

"She's been pretty tough," Fisher's mother Joanne said. "The whole thing happened so quickly, we didn't have time to worry. Now it's just reminding her to take her medication, which she knows how important that is."

In the fall of 2003, Fisher returned to Penn State.

Being a heart transplant recipient hasn't changed Fisher's life much. She will have to take prescription drugs for the rest of her life to keep her body from rejecting her heart. And every six months she returns to Philadelphia where tiny pieces of her heart are taken out to biopsy for rejection.

The fun part of being a transplant recipient happened this summer. In June, Fisher joined 115 transplant recipients from eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware to compete with Team Philadelphia at the U.S. Transplant Games in Louisville, Ky.

"As long as you have a transplant, you can go," said Fisher, who competed in basketball and volleyball.

Running into celebrities like snowboarder Chris Klug, basketball star Sean Elliott and actor Larry Hagman added to the excitement. Klug and Hagman are liver transplant recipients, and Elliott has a kidney transplant.

"The intent of the whole thing was awareness and to meet other people," Joanne Fisher said.

Now 22 years old, Fisher is on a mission to promote organ donor awareness.

"I'm more for organ donation now," said Fisher, who joined with another Penn State student to form a chapter of Students for Organ Donation at State College.

Having a scar seems to be a plus.

"I actually like my scar," Fisher said. "It's a conversation starter."

Copyright © 2006 Pocono Record, Stroudsburg, PA .

This article posted September 3, 2006.