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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Organ Patient Has Medal, Mettle

They told her they couldn’t help her, those organ transplant specialists. Teresa Martinson left them thinking about her death sentence as she drove home to Coeur d’Alene a year ago. She was only 41.

“That just wasn’t acceptable,” she says now, a smile spreading across her tanned face.

Teresa has a bronze medal to prove her mettle. She won it last month cycling at the Transplant Games in Salt Lake City. She could say, “I told you so” to those doctors who gave up. But Teresa has too much class.

“I knew what they told me was very conservative,” she says, her eyes lingering on a picture of the granddaughter she nearly missed experiencing.

Teresa was diagnosed with a rare liver disease seven years ago. The disease caused her bile ducts to close and her liver to stop serving as the body’s filter system. She needed a transplant.

The children in the sixth-grade class she taught in Rathdrum cried when she was absent. She’d explained her illness to them. They knew transplant surgery would yank Teresa from them without warning and that she wouldn’t return to their class.

Doctors found a liver to match in December 1990. Surgery went well and Teresa returned to teaching the following fall. She felt so healthy that she cycled in the 1992 Transplant Games in Los Angeles. But she didn’t medal.

“The neatest thing about the Transplant Games is being around all those people who know exactly what you’re going through,” she says. “Doctors and family can say they understand, but another transplant patient really does.”

Teresa slowed down after the games. Her energy waned. The pre-transplant confusion and dizziness returned. Her sick time from school multiplied. She was horrified.

“I felt like, not again,” she says.

Her doctor talked about another transplant. But tests showed nothing wrong with her new liver. Still, Teresa’s health ebbed. She bounced in and out of the hospital but continued to teach when she could.

A year ago, she returned to the transplant center for the medical work needed before a second transplant. Before doctors could start, the director informed Teresa the center could do nothing more for her. He failed to tell her that he’d sent her medical records to specialists in California with hope they could help.

At first she was stunned at his declaration, then angry. Five generations of her family were alive and healthy. She refused to let short-sighted doctors end her life.

Within a few weeks, the University of San Francisco contacted her. A transplant specialist there decided to trace the path of her blood. He found that the main vein to her liver had closed and her blood was pooling at her spleen.

Last December, doctors removed Teresa’s spleen so other veins would have nowhere to take blood but her liver. Her health improved immediately.

By spring, Teresa began thinking about the Transplant Games again. She wanted to cycle, but dietary restrictions posed a few problems. She couldn’t eat dairy products or protein, a must for muscle development.

Still, her body cooperated. Teresa cycled through the summer, sometimes up to 10 miles a day. By late August, she was ready to join the 1,500 other transplant athletes in Salt Lake City.

Race day temperatures sizzled at 104 degrees. After several athletes crumbled, games officials cut Teresa’s race from 10 miles to three. She had watched her diet obsessively to give herself every possible advantage.

She poured all her energy into propelling her new bike toward the finish. As she crossed the line and braked, Teresa slumped to the ground.

She awoke in the hospital’s emergency room where worried family and friends dangled her bronze medal over her.

“I didn’t know I’d won anything,” she says, still excited at the surprise. “I was thrilled.”

Doctors told her she’d depleted her body of protein - something she didn’t know was possible - and prescribed a steak dinner and rest.

Teresa’s back in school at Garwood Elementary this month and nearly as hearty as her 29 fourth-graders. She knows her liver is healthy but dietary slips can hurt her. Doctors offered her no prognosis after her latest surgery - just hope that her body will take the right steps to heal itself.

“So far, so good,” she says.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo