Miracles of Love and Medicine Save Dying Teen
By Jennifer Sabin Sattley, with Marilyn Faulkner
This is the conclusion of a two-part article about the author’s struggles with cystic fibrosis, and the miracles that happened in her life. Read part 1 here.
As Thanksgiving of 1999 approached, word went out to our family and friends that living donors were needed. A living lobar transplant involves removing a lobe from a lung of a living donor and replacing the damaged lung of the patient. Lungs are made up of five lobes, three on the right side and two on the left side, and one healthy lobe can expand to replace the entire lung of a cystic fibrosis patient.
As word went out that the members of my family could not donate, more than thirty members of our stake volunteered to undergo this risky and painful surgery to save my life. The members of the transplant staff at the hospital were amazed. This was unlike anything that they had seen. They couldn’t believe that so many people were willing, even anxious, to be part of this difficult and dangerous process.
My bishop, Graham Bullick, knew immediately that he would be part of my surgery, and called our home to volunteer. Jim Davies, another member of the ward, felt so strongly that he would be part of the process that he ordered his own tests and faxed them to my parents, even though he had been told that they had other volunteers ready.
At the last moment Graham and Jim were chosen, and as Thanksgiving day approached they met at our home to give me a blessing. As Jim described me later, “Jenny came out into the living room, pulling her IV stand with her, breathing with the help of oxygen. She weighed about 85 pounds and we were shocked at her frail appearance.”
These two faithful priesthood holders laid their hands on my head with my father, and I received a blessing that I’ll never forget. The next day, we all checked into the hospital. As doctors removed my damaged lungs in Children’s Hospital, surgeons in a neighboring hospital removed a lobe from each of my donors. These were rushed to Children’s for me. Our Poway, California Stake fasted for all of us and held a special prayer meeting. The surgeries were successful, and my new life began.
Expressing Gratitude
How do you express your gratitude when someone has given you your life back? These two men have saved my life through their selfless sacrifice and allowed me to experience so much joy. I am forever grateful. My lungs, damaged beyond belief, would not have sustained my life for more than a few more weeks. I was literally saved from the brink of death and brought back into the world of the living.
About a week after my surgery I felt even a greater depth of gratitude for the sacrifice of my friends as I was taken off the ventilator that was breathing for me. I recorded the amazing experience of my first breath in my journal:
My eyes watered as I felt the long tube brushing along my throat. Mom and Dad came in the room, and Mom asked me how it felt. I took a deep breath, something I hadn’t been able to do in a long, long time, and began weeping. I was crying not so much because of what it felt like right then, but because of the complete realization of what that feeling meant. It meant that cystic fibrosis was forever gone from my new lungs and that I was going to live. I simply felt relieved, grateful and incredibly, incredibly overcome with joy. As I began to cry, so did everyone else ? my family and the entire medical staff.
I could relay countless recovery stories: my first food after eight days, my walks around the hospital suited up with gloves and masks dragging my IV pole and chest tubes, and the painful removal of my four chest tubes.
Just before leaving the hospital I had a routine biopsy that resulted in another needed and granted miracle. A medical mistake caused some sudden and dangerous bleeding that caused me to lapse into a coma and nearly ended my life. My family, my donors and all the members of our stake were devastated. My father stood at the microphone in church and asked for their faith again. Our entire stake in Poway fasted again for me, and I recovered (though I like to blame my bad memory on that medical crisis!), to the surprise of my doctors. I was finally able to leave the hospital and enjoy New Year’s with my family at the Ronald McDonald house, where I would stay for the next month.
I don’t know why I was saved when others who have fatal diseases are allowed to die. That is a question only God can answer. But I am grateful that in my case prayers were heard and miracles were allowed to happen.
Jim Davies, Jennifer, Graham Bullick
It will be seven years at the end of November since my lung transplant. I can hardly believe it! I feel so incredibly blessed to have been given another chance at life. My health has its ups and downs and is somewhat unpredictable, but I think that it’s not very different from the ups and downs in everyone’s life.
Since my transplant I have been able to graduate from both high school and college and have been so incredibly blessed to be married to my very best friend in the whole world, Patrick Sattley. My life has not been how I planned it, but it has been wonderfully rewarding. I feel blessed to be put in a position where only an eternal perspective and a reliance on my Lord and His plan for me was all I could cling to. As a result, I have been taught the keys to happiness in this life. There are some life lessons that can only be learned in the face of death.
Patrick and Jennifer Sattley
Life Lessons
I have learned to love and not to judge. When mourning my dear brother’s death, for months and months, no one had any idea the pain I was still in. Or when arriving at school when the school day was half over, chilled and feverish after hours of treatments, thoughtless friends would jokingly say, “You are so lucky, I hate you!” How welcome a kind word would have been instead.
We truly have no idea what the person next to us is enduring, even if we think we do ? we don’t. We should never even try to judge. Life is too short to be filled with the negative feelings judgment brings. Instead love ? always love.
We are all divine sons and daughters.Truman G. Madsen said, “The cruelest thing you can do to a human being is to make him forget that he or she is the son or daughter of a king.” To follow the Savior’s example, each one of us must look around and reach out to the sheep within our reach and lift them up and encourage them to proceed on the journey towards eternal life. This need today is as great as or perhaps even greater than when the Savior walked on this earth. As shepherds we must understand that we should nurture each one of our sheep to bring them to Christ, which is the purpose of all we do in this Church.
Another lesson I have learned from my experiences is to, as President Hinckley has instructed, “accentuate the positive.” If we walk with our heads down, in discouragement or sin, we aren’t looking up to see the Savior calling to us, bringing us hope and happiness. The Lord has a plan for each one of us and trials are a part of that plan. We can either see gratitude or terrible disappointment. We can accept our reality or we can waste time and emotional energy wishing it away.
My motto, through all the painful medical procedures I have endured to this day, is “just do it.” We often cannot change our circumstances, but we can choose how we react and what we make of the situation.
In his biography, President Hinckley observed a sign on a wall of a shoe shop that said, “I complained because I had no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet.” There is always someone worse off than we are. I was always taught to be thankful for so many of the blessings we take for granted every day ? for my eyesight, for my hearing, for being able to walk, for food, for shelter.
My parents often spoke of others in third world countries who didn’t have water or who suffered from leprosy or cleft palates and how we are so blessed to live in this wonderful free country and to have the gospel in our lives. None of us know how long we have on this earth, but we do know we have an eternity to live with our choices ? good or bad.
We have every reason to rejoice because we have the gospel. We know who we are, why we are here, where we are going, and that we can receive divine help along the way. The earnest, prayerful utterance of “My Heavenly Father” can have a profound effect upon our lives. Even in difficult times, our rejoicing attitude can lift others.
When my brother Justin had a feeding tube inserted above his belly button, he jokingly remarked, “Not everybody has both an innie and an outie.” When we are going through difficult times, we must remember it is “for a small moment and if we endure it well, we will be exalted.”
I know that life is not meant not be easy because salvation is not a cheap experience, but faith in the Lord Jesus Christ prepares us for whatever life brings. I wonder if we take enough time to ponder this meaning. We will live forever in joy, surrounded by the ones we love. It is so important to remember this and to not get distracted, that worldly things that may seem so important now really aren’t and that family and the gospel are all that matter.
A quote I really like says, “May we honor our Savior by stepping out of the world ? there is nothing for you there.”In daily life and in challenging times, I know we can feel peace, hope and love that only trusting our Savior can bring. For he has promised, “I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying .Fear not; I will help thee” (Isaiah 41:13).” And I echo Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”
I know that families are eternal -that they should be treated like the most important thing on this earth ? because they are. We never know how long we have with each other before we are reunited in the hereafter. I would go through any trial if I could have my family by my side. Each member has sacrificed so much for me. They have all been my ministering angels, and I am forever grateful to them and to my Heavenly Father for blessing me with them. And now I am so grateful and treasure everyday with my husband. I feel everyday with him is a beautiful gift.
I know that if we are following the commandments, and trust in the Lord, we have nothing to fear in this life. What an incredible blessing ? to go through life without anything to fear! With the Lord nothing can go permanently wrong, but without him, nothing can go permanently right.
Saving One Soul
I know what it is like to be “the one” in need of saving ? to be so completely helpless that my life literally depended on the loving sacrifice of two individuals to save me. I can never fully express my gratitude to my donors. As quoted in the Ensign article about my experience, “Every joy I experience in this life, every new discovery, every smile, every hope for the future, simply ever moment, I owe to them. I am forever indebted, forever grateful, forever humbled, forever in awe and forever inspired by their amazing sacrifice” (October 2006 Ensign, p. 22).
When someone literally saves your life, you think of that person constantly. You strive to honor him, you remember his sacrifice. And so it should be with every one of us in remembering the sacrifice of our Savior, for that each one of us is “the one” that has been spiritually saved by our loving Savior. Jesus declared that He was the Good Shepherd, the True Shepherd. Because of His love for His brothers and sisters, He would willingly and voluntarily lay down His life for them. (See John 10:11-18.) He loves us that much.
Elder Orson F. Whitney shared his feelings:
Our little finite afflictions are but as a drop in the ocean, compared with the infinite and unspeakable agony borne by him for our sakes because we were not able to bear it for ourselves.
And in Doctrine and Covenants 19:15 “How sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yeah, how hard to bear you know not.”
C.S. Lewis shared wrote:
He has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. He does not have to deal with us in the mass. You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He ever created. When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only man in the world.
I know that Christ doesn’t want us to go through this life alone ? I know I couldn’t. He wants to help us. That is why he gave his life for us. Christ said to Isaiah, “How can I forget you? You are engraven upon the palms of my hands.” I know that if we call on him, he will not take away our burdens, but he will strengthen us that “our burdens may be light.” And we will have the hope and strength to push on.
The Good Shepherd willingly gave His life for His sheep, for you and me, yes, for all of us, that we might live eternally with our Father in Heaven. The two men who put their own lives on the line to save mine are true followers of that Shepherd. We won’t all have the opportunity to do such obviously heroic acts, but it is by small and simple acts that great things come to pass.
What are we willing to give to save “the one?” As Bishop Bullick so eloquently stated, “Only a life lived for others is a life worth living.” We honor our Savior by remembering his sacrifice for each one of us ? by reaching out to all of those around us and striving to nurture them and bring them back to the fold.
2006 Meridian Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
