Family’s Love Sustained Her, but It Couldn’t Save Her
One of the pleasures of writing this column has been the chance to meet so many people who put others before themselves. Among the most inspirational have been members of the Allen family, of Hemet. On Good Friday, March 28, doctors built a new set of lungs for Easter Allen, a young woman with cystic fibrosis, from lung sections donated by Easter’s mother, Dale, and her brother, Josh.
The family’s enthusiasm afterward was contagious. I tried to picture the first time Easter’s mother had a chance to visit her daughter after the rare, double-transplant operation at the UC San Diego Medical Center: Easter, hooked up to a respirator and unable to speak, giving her mother a thumb’s up sign, and trying through her own sign language to say “I love you.â€
Tuesday night, at 10:30 p.m., Easter Allen died after more than a month at the hospital. Her family’s loving attempt to save her just didn’t work out.
Easter Allen, born on Easter Sunday 28 years ago, had suffered from cystic fibrosis, a crippling respiratory disease, since birth. But throughout high school and college, she had been active, holding the disease in check. She was even a cheerleader most of those years. She lived the greatest part of her life in Riverside County, but a few years after leaving college, she moved to Huntington Beach to make a home for herself and her young son.
Over the past year, her condition deteriorated rapidly. Breathing became extremely difficult. Easter was on a waiting list for a lung transplant from a donor, but that wait usually lasts two years. Fearing that Easter wouldn’t survive long enough for her name to come up, doctors agreed to the family’s request that some of them give up parts of their lungs, so new lungs could be built for her. Dale Allen was a late-hour replacement donor for her husband, Bob, after doctors decided her lungs would be more compatible for Easter.
The family was at her bedside when she died. The Rev. Greg Hepner, who had led them in prayer right before the operation, was there too. He told me on Wednesday:
“The family is exhausted, devastated, about what you might expect from them after they’d done everything they could to save her.â€
The lead paragraph on my April 12 column said Easter and both donors were doing fine. Admittedly, I was caught up in the family’s optimism. Easter was even talking about making her high school class’ 10th reunion a few weeks away. And the chief surgeon on the operation, Dr. Stuart Jamieson, said he believed the odds were in her favor.
But Jamieson also cautioned at the time that it was an extremely serious operation, and that Easter remained in critical condition. In the weeks that followed, her immune system simply would not accept the transplant.
Jamieson said he never would have recommended the double-transplant from family members, except that Easter’s health was deteriorating so quickly there was no time left to wait for a regular donor--someone who had died and agreed to leave his or her organs for transplants.
In the end, we know the attempt to save Easter failed. But for the few weeks of extra life--and the hope--that this transplant gave her, we can be sure that her family would do it again.
In the Year 2022: Today is Law Day nationwide. In celebration, faculty, staff and students at Western State University College of Law in Fullerton buried a time capsule Wednesday--to be opened 25 years from now. Included: Some predictions about what life will be like then, made both by law students and area high school students.
Here’s a sampling from Western State students:
* By 2022, classroom instruction will be replaced by home study, via the Internet or some other online service. Also, Michele Dobson will be a judge. (This from Western State student Michele Dobson.)
* Retirement age will be pushed to the mid-70s.
* Police will have the authority to shoot any felony suspect on sight without need of a court process. (My goodness.)
* We will have professional juries and they will serve five-year terms.
The high school students predicted an end to abortion, mandatory schooling through the age of 18, and free Internet access for everyone.
One interesting “possibility†came from Grace Kim, 15, of Troy High School: Surgeons here will be able to perform surgery in other countries by computer, using robots to assist them. But Grace quickly adds that in 2022 we will need to have stringent laws controlling scientific advances that society may deem ethically incorrect.
My favorite time capsule note came from Daniel Steinberg, 15, of Troy High School: “Gee, the year 2022--I never thought it would come.â€
Anaheim’s L.A. Corner? Los Angeles is by far the largest city in Southern California. Fine. But why do national magazines keep thinking the rest of us can’t get along without it? Time magazine this week said Tiger Woods grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles. What? He grew up in Cypress, in a different county. You know how many cities are on a direct line between Cypress and Los Angeles? Lakewood, Cerritos, Norwalk, Downey, Bell Gardens and Commerce. From some parts of Cypress, throw in Hawaiian Gardens and Paramount.
By the way, Tiger Woods attended high school in Anaheim. Considering which city has a team in the National Hockey League playoffs, I don’t even think anyone in Los Angeles thinks of Anaheim as one of its suburbs.
Wrap-Up: I know that many of you have said prayers for Easter Allen, because you’ve called here or donated funds to help defray her medical costs.
The Rev. Hepner said a memorial service may be held Sunday at the Pilgrim Congregational Church in Hemet, which was the family church, but that final plans had not been made as of late Wednesday. I’ll try to relate them in Saturday’s column.
Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to Jerry.H[email protected]
