Two Friends, One Organ Donor

Surprise Ending To Tense Wait For UCSF Patients

Patricia Yollin

Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, January 1, 2004

When they met just before Christmas, Matthew Callison and Carrie Shellhammer already had a few things in common. They were young, vibrant and thoroughly outdoorsy.

They were also in desperate need of organ transplants.

Callison needed a heart, Shellhammer a pair of lungs. He'd been waiting six weeks, she'd been waiting six years.

Callison, a teacher living in Oakland, is afflicted with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. In other words, his heart has failed him. No one knows why.

Shellhammer, a graduate of Cal Poly with a degree in animal science, has Osler-Weber-Rondu syndrome, a genetic disorder, and severe pulmonary hypertension.

They were living on the 10th floor of the UCSF Medical Center, six rooms apart, and hoping they wouldn't be among the 17 people in the United States who die each day because they didn't get an organ in time.

"It is such a process to maintain me," Callison said on Christmas Eve, glancing at the tube pouring a drug called dobutamine into his body to improve the pumping action of his heart.

He got sick on Oct. 4, his 28th birthday. He and his fiancee had gone to Pinnacles National Monument for a weekend of camping and rock climbing. He spent his first day there asleep in a tent.

He'd been dizzy and lightheaded the day before. In the next few weeks, other problems materialized: coughing, tightness in his chest, loss of appetite, upset stomach, shortness of breath.

By Veterans Day, Callison had seen doctors, undergone an EKG and knew that what he had wouldn't go away.

"I probably hadn't been super-worried, but it's always in the back of your mind," Callison said. "There's always the fear of something happening. I had cancer when I was 4."

He was told that in a best-case scenario, he'd be better in six months through medication alone. In a worst-case scenario, he'd need a heart transplant.

For Callison, a native of Washington state who lives with his fiancee, it didn't take long for the worst-case scenario to present itself.

"I accept the reality of it, but there's a seed of hope the medication will work," said Callison, propped up in his hospital bed. "Even though I shouldn't hope, I do."

He was, as usual, tethered to his IV pole, decorated with a big red bow and ribbon. A large green paper Christmas tree on the wall facing his bed -- a "tree of well wishes" -- had been created by the students at Cabello Elementary School in Union City, where Callison teaches fourth grade. They'd made the tree from cutouts of their hand prints.

The room also contained gingerbread men, red balloons and the three people who were spending most of their lives there: Matt's parents, Ida Marie and Gary Callison, and Matt's fiancee, Joy Blackburn.

Callison's mother had given up her paper route to be with her son. His father, a school administrator, had more flexibility. Residents of Wenatchee, Wash., they were staying in a basement apartment in the Richmond District, not far from the Inner Sunset neighborhood where UCSF is a dominant presence.

Someone from Callison's New Hope Covenant Church in Oakland had provided the apartment, and church members had thrown a hospital party the night before.

"It's been extremely surreal. I kept thinking, 'Maybe we'll all wake up and go back to our normal life,' " said Ida Marie Callison, 62. "But he makes a really great patient."

Her husband said their son was the same way as a 4-year-old with Burkitt's lymphoma.

"He's very positive," said Gary Callison, 60. "The doctors said, 'I can't believe this kid.' And he was always fascinated with the medical stuff. When he told us, 'I'm sorry to put you through this twice,' it was a real tearjerker for us."

Although parents tend to be biased, Callison's fourth-graders offered a similar portrait in a gift they made for their teacher. It's a book called "The Important Thing about Mr. C.'' Each page is from a different student: "He makes me laugh ... he is fun to be around ... he teaches us and we actually get it in our heads ... it's easy to be friends with him ... he wears different clothes every day to impress us."

Callison said he missed his students. He also missed being outside, walking unencumbered and eating regular food instead of his low-sodium, low- potassium diet.

"I'm craving french fries or even a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup," said the 123-pound Callison, down 17 pounds from his normal weight and subject to nausea and diarrhea. "And I see these commercials for pasta and the Olive Garden."

It was Christmas Eve. Dinner the next day would be Boston Market turkey, just like it was at Thanksgiving. Callison and Blackburn were supposed to be in her Indiana hometown for the holidays, planning an April wedding. It's been postponed.

Blackburn, a 27-year-old social worker, recalled a Yosemite backpacking trip in July. "Matt was just kicking our butts," she said.

Gary Callison sighed. "Life changes quickly," he said.

And it could change again.

"I've stopped thinking about if the transplant would happen," Matt Callison said. "It could be tomorrow or it could be in four or five months."

Down the hall, Carrie Shellhammer knew all about waiting. Her diagnosis had been delivered exactly six years before, on Dec. 23, 1997.

Nine months earlier, she'd started feeling strange. A member at the time of the alpine ski team at Cal Poly, she noticed her heart was working harder and she seemed to be out of shape. It didn't make sense. Shellhammer had shown horses since she was 5; she water-skied, danced, swam and ran track. Her family in Woodland, 18 miles northwest of Sacramento, had a cabin at Lake Tahoe, and it was her favorite place.

"When they called and said there was really something wrong, it was a relief to know I wasn't crazy," said Shellhammer, 26, as she cradled a small teddy bear.

The relief subsided and shock took over. At age 20, she was told she had two years to live unless she got a transplant. It didn't turn out that way.

"It's taken a long time to sink in," Shellhammer said. "Every time I was too sick to do what I wanted, it was a little more real."

As her condition degenerated, much of her life was put on hold. Her latest visit to UCSF -- five weeks as of Christmas Eve -- was her longest hospital stay. This time was different, though. She knew she wasn't getting out unless she got a transplant.

The day before, she'd passed out during a morning walk in the hallway. A few hours later, still shaken, Shellhammer said, "Two months ago, I was 75 percent sure I wanted a transplant, but I still had doubts because it's scary. Now I am so ready. One way or another, I need to get back to my dogs."

Pictures of the dogs, a golden retriever and Australian shepherd, were among dozens of snapshots on Shellhammer's wall. Her IV pole was decorated with gold tinsel. A bunch of narcissuses, pair of angels and plant-size Christmas tree were other reminders of the holiday at hand.

"I need a lot of angels to get through this," Shellhammer said. "There are two visible ones, but there are a lot more working on the case."

She's the youngest member of a support group in San Jose for people with her disease. Ten or 15 have died. She spends a lot of time on organ-donor awareness campaigns, and has worked with an art therapist for six months doing watercolors and clay masks -- which helped distill unarticulated fears.

After she dreamed about surfing in the ocean, she painted her heart cresting on a wave. "It made me decide for sure," she said.

Her many friends were dropping by continually and she'd had a one-week romance with an admirer from high school who wanted to act before it was too late.

Her parents, who are divorced, were taking turns staying with her. Sometimes her father slept in his car in the parking garage. And her mother, who'd taken a leave of absence from her job as a marriage and family therapist, slept in the women's lounge or the foldout chair next to her daughter's bed.

The afternoon before, Chris Shellhammer -- who'd done all her Christmas shopping in one six-hour spurt -- had raced back to Woodland, two hours away, to do laundry, pay bills, wrap presents and pack enough clothes for two weeks.

"We all know it could be any time," said Shellhammer, 52.

It's something her daughter didn't want to contemplate. Like Callison, who she'd met three days before, she was trying to avoid obsessing about when, or if, the transplant would happen.

"If it's months away, I don't want to be on edge all the time," Shellhammer said.

Instead, she was thinking about the little things she'd fully appreciate on "the other side," as she called her post-transplant life: hot fudge sundaes, walks with her dogs, drinking tea by the fire, swimming anywhere at all, and freedom from the purse-size pump she hadn't removed for 4 1/2 years. It supplies Flonan, a drug that dilates blood vessels to help open the lungs.

During her first week in the hospital, she couldn't eat or drink anything. "I asked about 100 times for juice," she recalled. "I thought I'd die of thirst or irritation. When I get home, I'm going to have 50 juices in the refrigerator."

Shellhammer said she was acutely aware the door to her room could open at any moment with news that would change her life. On Monday morning, that's exactly what happened.

Something else happened, too, that no one had anticipated: Callison's door opened as well.

He and Shellhammer would be sharing more than the friendship that had blossomed in their sixth week at the hospital. His heart and her lungs would be coming from the same donor.

Shellhammer was nervous but every bit as ready as she had claimed to be. Callison wasn't ready at all.

"He called me at 5 a.m.," said Blackburn in the hospital waiting room on Monday afternoon. "He was shocked and upset. They told him it could be any time, but we really didn't believe it. It could have been months or years."

After Callison talked to his doctor, he calmed down, Blackburn said. She convinced him she'd tried all her tricks and the transplant was the only alternative.

A subdued Gary Callison, who was sitting with his wife, Blackburn and three of the young couple's friends, said, "I was like my son. I was hoping we could get around it. I wish we'd had more time to process it."

After wishing his son luck at 2 p.m., Callison dismantled the hospital room and packed everything up. It helped distract him.

"Matt wants to see his heart afterward," Callison said. "He said, 'How many people get to see their own heart?'"

The first incision was made at 4:13 p.m. Callison's new heart arrived in a blue Igloo cooler, the kind used for picnic lunches, around 5 p.m. His own heart was removed at 5:43 p.m. and put in an open tray, where it kept on beating for a bit.

"If I touch it, it will wiggle," said a nurse. She was right.

At 6:33 p.m., the new heart was in place -- three hours and 18 minutes after being removed from the donor.

Circulating nurse Colette McIntosh was pleased.

"You only have four to six hours after it's harvested," she said.

In the next surgical studio, Shellhammer's operation began at 6:45 p.m. When the right lung was extracted and put in a plastic container, it was mottled with black splotches -- not unlike the tar-like substances on smokers' lungs, said circulating nurse Lorraine Herrera.

Shellhammer's surgery lasted seven hours, compared to four for Callison. For Dr. Chuck Hoopes, who handled both transplants and an operation that morning, it was a very long day.

Besides everything else, the two transplant patients have a doctor in common: Teresa De Marco, professor of medicine and medical director of heart transplants at UCSF.

"They're doing beautifully," said the overjoyed doctor on Tuesday evening after visiting both.

"You are brother and sister now," she told them jokingly.

"They were very, very lucky," De Marco said later. "To see this happen has made my holiday. It's extremely unusual to have people the same age, at the same hospital, getting organs from the same donor."

She said Callison and Shellhammer immediately inquired about each other's welfare. On Wednesday morning, they were able to find out directly. During a 10-minute walk around the coronary intensive care unit, they were allowed the briefest of visits.

De Marco said they'll probably get out of the hospital within a week. The next six months -- which Shellhammer had envisioned as a life of Handy Wipes and germ avoidance -- will be crucial.

Mary Wallace, public affairs manager of the California Transplant Donor Network, said the donor was a young man from Northern California, similar in height and weight to Callison, who died of a brain injury.

Wallace said 82,437 people in need of organs are on a national waiting list -- 8,000 from Northern and Central California.

Although survivors are approached at hospitals about donations, "if the deceased has a donor card or has talked to their family, that makes it easier, " Wallace said.

"That's what I tell my friends," Shellhammer had said on Christmas Eve. "Just tell your parents now. They'd never thought of talking about it."

For more information, contact the donor network at (888) 570-9400 or visit http://www.ctdn.org/

E-mail Patricia Yollin at pyollin@sfchronicle.com.

Copyright © 2004 San Francisco Chroncile.

This article posted January 24, 2004.