Posts by Aaron Babcock

Karen and Greg came to Cleveland after she was turned down in their home state for a lung transplant. The team in Wisconsin believed that her case was too complicated by several cardiac issues to go forward. After this setback, the Kloses traveled over 600 miles to the Cleveland Clinic where the transplant team chose…

“A lot of people say they are scared of death – and don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to die – but the life I’m living isn’t great.” The college students seated around 21-year-old Matthew Young in Transplant House’s programming space are all within a year or two of his age. They are listening…

*All names of other guests mentioned have been changed to protect their privacy. The first thing Dreama Cooper says about her husband Todd is that he “has nine lives.” The Cooper’s transplant journey has been a difficult one. And while each transplant experience is unique, the challenges Dreama and Todd have faced are ones many…

Imagine learning that you would need to be away from your home, your family, and your community for at least 100 days in unfamiliar surroundings while navigating a life-changing medical diagnosis. For Miriam Weaver, who came to Cleveland with her husband Ron in need of a bone marrow transplant, she knew that she would have…

Christine Gossett was 14 years old when she was told that she did not have a uterus. “When I got that diagnosis, it was devastating news for a teenage girl,” she remembers. “It’s traumatizing to hear there’s no hope for you, that you’re not ever going to be able to become pregnant.” Like Christine, Amanda…

During a two-day surgery in May of 2022, Donna Plummer received her liver transplant. Of those days and the weeks of recovery in the ICU that followed, Donna admits she remembers very little. “I was just surviving,” she says. “It’s come out pretty well I think, but there were some struggles. But we had a…

Jennifer Alley had her intestinal transplant in July of 2004. In 2008 she gave birth to her son, Felton. “I was the first adult small bowel recipient to give birth,” Jennifer says. Jennifer Alley’s transplant journey began with a diagnosis of myopathic obstruction. What that meant, as Jennifer explains, is that she had no gastrointestinal…