IRVINE : A Show of Support for Heart Patient

Carolynn O’Malley clenched her mother’s hand as she talked about the disease that is destroying her heart, the transplant that could save her and the efforts of students and staff at a Mission Viejo school to raise money for her treatment.

But there was no waver in the voice of the 20-year-old Irvine college student and hairdresser, who doctors say will probably be dead within two years unless a transplant is performed.

“I always think about (the transplant and death), but I’m more worried about everybody else--my family, my boyfriend--and how this is affecting them,” she said.

O’Malley is suffering from a scarring of the heart, probably caused by a viral infection that struck last fall, which has reduced the heart’s capacity to pump blood by about 90%. She is the focus of a fund-raising drive at La Tierra Elementary School, where her mother, Kathy Gonzales, is the science teacher. O’Malley is covered by her mother’s Saddleback Valley Unified School District health insurance, but it does not pay for heart transplants or their after-care.

Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach has agreed to pay O’Malley’s doctor bills and donate the first 120 days of hospitalization, expected to cost $80,000. But that leaves uncovered at least $30,000 of drug and other costs that O’Malley will face in the year after surgery, which is what the students and staff are hoping to raise.

Peggy Davis, a teacher at La Tierra, is coordinating the fund-raising effort, which has raised about $5,000 since it began two weeks ago.

“The staff members here have always helped each other out, and this is no different,” Davis said. “I know that if this was my child, I would want somebody to help me.”

A drawing and jog-a-thon are scheduled for Wednesday. For every $1 a person donates to the jog-a-thon, he or she will receive a ticket to the drawing. More than 90 businesses have donated prizes.

A trust fund for O’Malley has been set up, and donations can be made through La Tierra. Its address is 24150 Lindley St., Mission Viejo, Calif. 92691.

O’Malley’s illness began last fall when she became sick with what she thought was the flu.

“I went to the hospital, I went to the doctors and they kept telling me I had the flu, but I wouldn’t get well,” O’Malley said. “They gave me tests for everything up to and including AIDS.”

It wasn’t until January that doctors learned what was wrong. O’Malley’s asthma medicine was building up in her system, which was what was making her ill. That led doctors to test her heart and uncover the scarring.

“It’s funny, because if I had not had asthma, they probably wouldn’t have found out about my heart until it was almost destroyed and I would be dead,” O’Malley said.

O’Malley was prescribed drugs to stem the disease’s damage, told that she would need a transplant and began the wait for a donor. Her new heart has to come from a person of similar size with a compatible blood type who has been killed by an aneurysm or an accident that has not damaged the heart.

Dr. Douglas Zusman, who will perform O’Malley’s operation with his partner, Dr. Aidan Raney, said that about 90% of heart transplant patients survive the first year and about 65% remain alive after five years.

“The operation itself isn’t terrible,” said Zusman, who said he has performed 40 transplants with the patient surviving the surgery each time. “What we have to watch for is infection and rejection. We will have to monitor that the rest of her life. But she will be able to go back to school and resume her normal life.”