Elfriede Pahl, MD
Lurie Children’s
transplant team
These are some really tough acts to follow! I have three daughters in their 20s, and I just can't imagine losing any one of them, so I know that things have been so hard for all of you.
I really appreciate the opportunity to speak today and what a wonderful celebration of Colleen’s life. I met Colleen and her parents when she was just a few months old as a baby.
I was her doctor for most of her life until she transitioned to the adult hospital. Over her life I had the privilege of caring for her through frequent checkups. I feel like I really got to know her, and her family was almost relatives with some of the things that we all went through with Colleen.
When she was in college, she went through a second transplant. Colleen waited many months in the hospital. We shared that time together as well, getting to chat almost every day about all kinds of different things, and I had a better sense of Colleen as a young adult. The quality of life after transplant is excellent. I always told Colleen that she had no restrictions—the sky's the limit. She always had a big smile. We would catch up about her activities whenever we met, and I think she really believed that as did I.
Colleen and my daughter Sarah were the same age and spent a few hours together around one Thanksgiving where Phil and I were on call. All three of my daughters are vegan, so Sarah went over to the Chicago Diner and got Colleen's favorite meal. We all watched her eat it while she was in the hospital waiting for her second transplant.
She waited many months for a second heart. As a young adult in the ICU, she really got to know everybody who worked there, as you know, Phil already alluded to. And we all had a chance to see Colleen’s resilient spirit and positive attitude.
I still remember the exciting moment when I got to tell her that we had a heart for her. It was very emotional for both of us.
Our transplant team hosted our Grateful Hearts Day for transplant families in 2017 in the summer. Colleen was the keynote speaker. Not surprisingly she spoke for about half an hour and told her story without PowerPoint, without notes, just shared with everybody what her life had been like. She was a real inspiration to the other patients and families who were at that meeting.
Colleen is interacting with the other patients. Every patient here had a transplant except for the dad holding his daughter.
Colleen was the keynote speaker for the 1st Annual Heart Transplant Day Retreat.
35 families registered and 22 came for this inaugural event.
Of course, Colleen had to show me that the sky was truly the limit when she went skydiving. She told me she had written on her hand, “sorry, Dr. Pahl” because she didn’t ask my approval before doing it. Colleen truly showed me that patients can live fully without boundaries after transplant. In her short life she touched so many people and did so many things. Her legacy goes on in all the charities that she's been involved with. It was an honor to be her doctor.
