City Councilwoman Given ‘Gift of Life’

The call came at 2:30 a.m., and a sleepy Ann Van Haun picked up the phone with a sense of dread. She expected some kind of emergency.

But the news was far from bad.

After enduring three long years of dialysis and wondering if she would ever get a new kidney, the Lake Forest City Council member and former mayor had less than 72 hours to get ready for an organ transplant.

Tonight, three weeks after a successful transplant operation, Van Haun, 61, returns to her council seat and a new life.

Behind her now is the love-hate relationship she had with the dialysis machines at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, where she visited for treatment three times a week.

On one hand, the machine “was a lifesaver,” said Van Haun. “It literally kept me alive.”

Still, the puncture marks on her arm where the dialysis tubes were inserted are only now beginning to fade. She can attend political functions and meetings that she previously had to turn down. Vacations can now be planned without having to check on the location of the nearest dialysis center.

“It was a very confining lifestyle,” said Van Haun. “But I do feel like I’ve got my life back.”

What has friends and council colleagues amazed is that they never would have known Van Haun had a serious medical problem by the amount of work she did for the city.

While afflicted with kidney disease, Van Haun was mayor for a year, when she had the responsibility of being lead negotiator for Lake Forest on the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station reuse controversy. If that wasn’t enough, she also survived a near-fatal car crash in late 1994 that left her in a walker for six months.

“She didn’t seem affected by her condition at all. Ann is absolutely amazing, and my hat is off to her,” Mayor Richard T. Dixon said.

The onset of kidney failure is marked by severe tiredness and nausea, symptoms Van Haun first experienced in 1992. She was diagnosed with a type of kidney inflammation that often leads to complete failure of the organ.

Although dialysis, which cleanses the blood of toxins, temporarily alleviates the symptoms, doctors say few patients return to holding a full-time job.

Even after having a kidney transplant, it can take up to a year for a patient to return to full strength, said kidney specialist Jerald Sigala, a Newport Beach physician who treats Van Haun.

Van Haun, on the other hand, will return to her council duties three weeks after her kidney transplant.

“Mental frame of mind is one of Ann’s positives,” said Sigala. “I have other patients in similar stages who don’t do nearly as well.”

Despite having a rare blood type, Van Haun never gave up hope that a matching donor would be found, although she admits to having dark moments.

“You try not to keep the idea of a transplant in the forefront all the time,” she said. “Otherwise you would drive yourself crazy from all the waiting. So when the call came, it came as a very big surprise.”

Van Haun got a huge boost last October when her brother, a Santa Ana resident who had kidney problems, successfully received a transplant. A sister who lives in London also got a kidney transplant and is doing well, said Van Haun.

“I was able to share that experience with him,” she said. “We kept on saying, ‘I’m next, I’m next.’ ”

And finally it was Van Haun’s turn.

As happy as she is at being paroled from dialysis, it pales compared to the overwhelming sense of emotion she feels toward her anonymous donor.

“I’m just so grateful that somebody out there has given that gift of life,” she said. “The one thing I want to get across is to tell people whose loved ones won’t be coming back what a gift this is for someone else.”