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Palm Desert transplant recipient Kelli Jaunsen to ride on ‘Donate Life’ Float in 2008 Rose Parade

Newswise — Palm Desert resident and heart-liver recipient Kelli Jaunsen has been selected to ride aboard the Donate Life float in the 2008 Rose Parade in Pasadena on New Year’s Day. The 23-year-old, who underwent life-saving transplant surgery in February at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, will be one of 24 transplant recipients waving to a million spectators, 40 million U.S. TV viewers and audiences worldwide.

“I’m honored and thrilled to be invited to participate—it’s a wonderful honor,” says Jaunsen, whose 16-hour procedure was Cedars-Sinai’s second heart/liver transplant and just the fifth in the western United States.

The riders were selected by sponsoring organizations nationwide—Kelli is sponsored by Cedars-Sinai—and collectively have received kidneys, hearts, lungs, livers, corneas, bone, ligaments and blood.

They will ride atop a 30-foot-high float, themed “Life Takes Flight,” featuring four hot air balloons symbolizing how lives are “lifted to new heights” through organ donation.

Just a year ago, Jaunsen’s prospects were dim. Born with life-threatening heart conditions, she was in and out of hospitals for much of her young life, and suffered through a litany of related medical problems.

In 2003, Jaunsen learned her liver was failing and only a double-transplant could save her life. In 2005, she was placed on the transplant waiting list.

This year, Donate Life is honoring donor families by inviting eight family members to accompany the float on foot. Each will hold a tether line attached to a hot air balloon bearing a “floragraph”—a floral portrait—of their loved ones.

Since returning home in March after nearly seven weeks of hospitalization, Jaunsen has experienced slow but steady improvement.

“The recovery is expected to take anywhere from six months to a year,” explains her father, Robert Jaunsen, adding that regular, ongoing biopsies have shown no sign of organ rejection.

Perhaps best of all, Jaunsen’s painful and disfiguring swelling is gradually diminishing. She’s also been able to cut back on a number of medications, though immunosuppressants will remain part of her medical regimen for life. Controlling pain remains an issue, but she and her family hope that, too, will subside with time.

Emotionally, his daughter is on a high, says the father who has been at her side throughout her ordeal. “She’s doing really well. She looks and feels so much better.”

After years on the sidelines, Jaunsen has been able to enjoy more and more of her favorite activities such as going to movies and the mall and driving the family car with her dad as “co-pilot.” She looks forward to picking up photography again and to visiting SeaWorld to see her beloved dolphins. In the meantime, Jaunsen is content to spend time with her own pets, German Shepherd “Deputy” and “Lulu” the cat.

That love of animals has inspired her interest in being a veterinarian, but school will have to wait until she’s made a full recovery.

In the meantime, Robert Jaunsen says the family is looking forward to a four-night stay in Pasadena as part of the parade festivities.

“We’ll be there to help decorate the float, and there will be receptions and other get-togethers—it should be a lot of fun,” he explained.

Coordinated by Donate Life America member OneLegacy, the Donate Life float is supported by more than 50 official partners from across the nation, including organ and tissue recovery organizations, transplant centers, non-profit and for-profit contributors, and transplant recipient organizations.

“This is the first year that the Donate Life float riders are all transplant recipients,” said Bryan Stewart, chair of the float organizing committee and director of communications for OneLegacy, the nonprofit, federally designated organ and tissue recovery agency serving the greater Los Angeles area.

More than 96,000 Americans currently await life-saving organ transplants, reports OneLegacy, and 17 people die each day due to the shortage of donated organs. Every year hundreds of thousands of people need donated eyes and tissue to prevent or cure blindness, heal burns or save limbs, and one out of three people will need donated blood in their lifetime.

The first in Southern California and one of only 10 hospitals in the state whose nurses have been honored with the prestigious Magnet designation, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is one of the largest nonprofit academic medical centers in the Western United States. For 19 consecutive years, it has been named Los Angeles’ most preferred hospital for all health needs in an independent survey of area residents.

Cedars-Sinai is internationally renowned for its diagnostic and treatment capabilities as well as breakthroughs in biomedical research and superlative medical education. It ranks among the top 10 non-university hospitals in the nation for its research activities and is fully accredited by the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs, Inc. (AAHRPP). Additional information is available at http://www.cedars-sinai.edu.