Amanda's Story

Amanda’s Story: Banner Employee Transplant Recipient - Full Transcription

Text: Amanda’s Story:
Banner Employee Transplant Recipient

 “We exist to make a difference in people’s lives through excellent patient care.”

Audio: Soft background music plays throughout video.

Text: Something wasn’t right…
         
Image:  Nick Kekich speaks on-camera

Text: Nick Kekich, Amanda’s Father

Audio:  “She’d always had Crohn’s and we discovered that about three years prior. So it seems like whenever she would start to—and she wouldn’t be feeling good or it would be her stomach or just whatever the case may be.”

Image:  Mary Anne Kekich speaks on-camera

Text: Mary Anne Kekich, Amanda’s Mother

Audio:  “Well, Amanda would tell us in December that she was tired and I figured that it was Crohn’s. I didn’t realize how bad it was. I remember a weekend in February; she spent the whole weekend in bed.”

Image:  Nick Kekich speaks on-camera

Audio:  “I started to be very concerned, to say the least, about what was occurring here but almost always, Mary and I always thought what the real issue was—was it was Crohn’s. Friday morning she woke up and she said, “My urine is like coffee.” So I called our doctor and he immediately said, “We need to get her into the hospital.” Mary Anne and I were there in Amanda’s room and we heard all this ruckus—all this clatter-noise going on. The physician’s assistant comes walking into Amanda’s room and says, ‘I don’t want to scare you guys. I’m not sure what’s really going on here but I think Amanda is having liver failure from everything that I’ve seen. And this hospital is not equipped to do the type of care that is probably going to be necessary.’”

Text: Amanda is transferred to Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center
Image:  Mary Anne Kekich speaks on-camera

Audio:  “Everyone was so attentive and so concerned and so kind and just cared for Amanda so much that we were so happy because we knew she was in the right place.”

Image:  Robert Raschke, MD, speaks on-camera

Text: Robert Raschke, MD

Audio:  “She had liver failure, kidney failure and rapidly developed respiratory failure.”

Image:  Elizabeth Cole-Sonneveld speaks on-camera

Text: Elizabeth Cole-Sonneveld, RN

Audio:  “Her parents prayed by that bedside nightly. And I’ll tell you one little thing they did one night. They said to God, ‘Thank you so much for giving her to us. And if you need to take her home now, you can.’ And that was the most poignant memory in my entire nursing career.”

Text: Then, on Mother’s Day…

Image:  Mary Anne Kekich speaks on-camera

Audio:  “Dr. Bajo said, ‘There’s finally a liver.’ He was looking so intently at me. ‘There’s finally a liver and I said, ‘Oh, my gosh. Fantastic.’”

Text: A new life

Text:   Amanda Kekich, Donor Recipient

Image: Amanda Kekich speaks on-camera

Audio:  “The next memories were in a completely different hospital in a completely different bed, not being able to move or talk and I had no idea what happened to me. I had no idea that I had a liver transplant. And I asked, you know, ‘Did I almost die?’” And at that point, they said, ‘Yeah.” I love my nurses. I love them so much; I will forever love them. Every single one, I remember—I don’t remember every single nurse obviously but there are ones that would stay with me for, you know, longer than a day that I will always, always remember their names. I remember how they made me feel, most importantly. There were definitely some nurses that impacted my life—one of them, in particular, his name was Dave. But he is the one that I realized that I wanted to be a nurse. He was the most incredible man. He told me jokes. He would come in with a new funny joke every day and made me laugh. And he would just talk to me about life and about what I had been through. And he did it in a way that was not forceful and I think he really helped me understand what I had gone through and what I needed to do with it. He really helped me understand that, ‘Okay, you had this really traumatic experience but you need to do something with it because you now have a gift—that you can understand things that other people can’t understand.’”

Closing Text: 
Inspired by the caregivers and the excellent treatment she received at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center, Amanda is an ICU nurse on the very same floor where she was treated.

To learn more about becoming an organ donor, please contact Gail Farrell at (602) 839-2168 or visit www.donatelife.net

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