Observations placeholder
Eating disorder from donor
Identifier
005317
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
This paper reports key observations from 10 representative cases of transplant recipients who were open to sharing experiences of personal changes following their operations ... To protect the privacy of the donors' families, recipients and their families, physicians and hospitals, donors and recipients are referred to by number, except when their first names were mentioned by family members or friends in the transcripts. All recipients and family members or friends of the donors were interviewed by Pearsall and audiotaped. The transcripts were examined by Schwartz and Russek and selected for inclusion in this report.
Each of the 10 cases includes a donor family member's report (or equivalent), a recipient's report (or equivalent) and a recipient family member's or friend's report. Donor family members, recipients and recipient family members or friends are quoted directly from the transcripts. Personal opinions (including controversial content) are reported verbatim. Each case includes two to five sample parallels between the donors and changes observed in the recipients post transplant surgery
A description of the experience
Organ Transplants and Cellular Memories - Extracted from Nexus Magazine, Volume 12, Number 3 (April - May 2005); Paul Pearsall, PhD ; Gary E. Schwartz, PhD ; Linda G. Russek, PhD
Case 6
The donor was a 14-year-old girl injured in a gymnastics accident. The recipient was a 47-year-old man diagnosed with benign myxoma and cardiomyopathy.
The donor's mother reported:
"Look at her [shows photograph]. My daughter was the picture of health. There wasn't an ounce of fat on her. She was a gymnast and her coach could lift her above his head with one hand. She was so excited about life that she would just hop and jump all the time like a kitten. She had some trouble with food, though. She would skip meals, and for a while she was purging. I think they would call her a little anorexic. We took her to therapy about it, but she just wasn't much into food. And she had this silly little giggle when she got embarrassed. It sounded like a little bird."
The recipient reported:
"I feel new again. I feel like a teenager. I actually feel giddy. I know it's just the energy of the new heart, but I really feel younger in every way, not just physically. I see the world that way. I'm really young at heart. I have this annoying tendency to giggle that drives my wife nuts. And there's something about food. I don't know what it is. I get hungry, but after I eat I often feel nauseated and that it would help if I could throw up."
The recipient's brother reported:
"Gus is a teenager. No doubt about that. He's a kid or at least he thinks he's a kid. Even when we're bowling, he yells and jumps around like a fool. He's got this weird laugh now. It's a girl's laugh and we tell him that. He doesn't care. His appetite never did bounce back after the surgery. He's pretty much nauseated almost all the time. After Thanksgiving dinner—and he loved it—he went upstairs and vomited. We took him to the emergency room, but it wasn't anything to do with his new heart. They said it was probably a reaction to something in the meal. None of the rest of the family got sick, though. He's going to have to watch it. His doctor is concerned about his weight."