News

Celebrating Christmas with many blessing

By Scott Wagar

12/06/2011

During this holiday season, Bottineau native Sheila Haakenson Sturlaugson feels that she has so much to be thankful for when its comes to her family, her career and now… her health.

At a very early age, Sturlaugson was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes, which is a complex and complicated disease. Diabetes is a chronic illness which doesn’t allow the body to produce insulin, which in turn doesn’t allow the body to metabolize sugar properly, causing a diabetic to have high blood sugars.  Since Type I diabetics cannot produce insulin, they must take daily insulin injections, adhere to a rigid diet and exercise to keep their blood sugars under control.

Sadly, even though diabetics go through regimental treatments to stay well and healthy, diabetes can often cause kidney failure, cardiology problems, blindness, neurological aliments and even death.

For Sturlaugson, her diabetes caused her to go into kidney failure, heart failure and in develop skin cancer.
However, two and a half years ago, she was given the opportunity to have a pancreatic transplant, which turned out to be a successful surgery and has taken her diabetes away. Through the surgery, Sturlaugson has been granted a normal life where she no longer has to take numerous shots a day to stay alive. Nor does she have to go through a painful procedure of poking her finger tips with a sharp needle numerous times a day to check her blood sugars.

Through Sturlaugson’s pancreatic transplant her life today is like any individual who doesn’t have diabetes. Through her new pancreas, Sturlaugson’s body now has the ability to produce insulin, which assists her body in metabolizing sugar and allows her to have normal and healthy blood sugars.  

When Sturlaugson was diagnosed with kidney failure, it meant she had to have a kidney transplant or spend the remainder of her life having kidney dialysis.

For kidney transplant patients, a good majority of them have to wait a long time to find a kidney that has the same blood and tissue type. More so, there are only a small number of people in America who are willing to be organ donors, and the period of time patients have to wait for an organ extends their waiting period even longer.

Sturlaugson was fortunate shortly after going into kidney failure, because her first cousin, Todd Haakenson, who also makes his home in Bottineau, was a perfect match for Sturlaugson.  

Despondently, within the first days of her transplant at the University of Minnesota, because of Sturlaugson’s diabetes it caused her to form blood clots, which caused her to lose her donated kidney.

To add to her difficulties, during the emergency surgery to remove her transplanted kidney, Sturlaugson’s diabetes also caused her to have a heart attack, which led to her open heart surgery at a later date.

Starting over again, suffering from kidney failure and now having a damaged heart, Sturlaugson’s sister, Lesa, who was the next best candidate for donating a kidney, gave her sister her kidney, which this time around was a success.

While at the University of Minnesota, Sturlaugson was informed about pancreatic transplants, which were taking place at the research medical facility. She later learned that she was a perfect candidate for a pancreatic transplant and made the decision to be placed on a transplant list, which led to the procedure in 2009.

Today, because of Sturlaugson’s kidney and pancreatic transplants she has a life that allows her to feel so much better than when she had diabetes, and gives her so much more freedom and fewer worries. She doesn’t have to get up each day and plan every detail of her life around her diabetes and how her day is going to affect her diabetes. Issues like when she will have to take insulin, what she will have to eat to cover the insulin she took so she doesn’t go into an insulin reaction, how she will find the time in her busy day to check her blood sugars and finding inventive ways to carry her diabetic supplies with her to care for the disease throughout the day. The daunting list goes on and on.    

Although she no longer takes insulin through needle injections, Sturlaugson does take 20 different types of medications throughout the day, which primarily consist of immunosuppressant drugs, (anti-rejection drugs) and prescribed supplements which allows a transplant patient’s body to accept the donated organ.
It’s normal for a patient’s body to reject a donated organ because the immune system sees the organ as a foreign body and tries to destroy the organ. Anti-rejection drugs protect the donated organ so transplant patients can live a healthy life.
With transplant medication, the patient must take their medication on a daily basis or face serious consequences.

“I must take my medications every day, morning and night, for the rest of my life,” Sturlaugson said. “If I don’t, my kidney and pancreas could start to fail in 24 hours without the medications. So, it’s important that I never miss taking my meds.”

Even today with a transplanted pancreas and healthy blood sugars, Sturlaugson still faces haunting memories from her time with diabetes, and the anti-rejection drugs she presently takes. Sturlaugson has had numerous angiograms and angioplasties associated from her diabetes, along with a bout of skin cancer caused by her anti-rejecting medications.

“It feels like I have had 101 things that happen since then,” she said. “And, it feels like the list just goes on and on.”

Sturlaugson also has the chance of rejecting her transplanted organs even with immunosuppressant. However, with today’s medical research on anti-rejection drugs, transplant patients have a better chance of not having organ rejection, granting them a lengthy life filled with happiness.  

However, even with Sturlaugson’s post-transplant medical difficulties, she feels personally touched by God this Christmas season to have had a pancreatic transplant and to not have diabetes anymore, which only shows how devastating the disease really is for diabetics.

“To not have diabetes anymore is something else and it’s an incredible feeling because I lived with it for so many years,” Sturlaugson said. “Diabetes is such a terrible disease, it literally destroys your body, and it is so unfair that so many people have diabetes and have to live with it on a daily basis.

“With not having diabetes I feel so blessed,” Sturlaugson added. “Even with the medical problems I face today due to my transplant, my life is so much better than having that terrible disease.”

For Sturlaugson, she enjoys every day of her life now and takes no second of it for granted. She spends a great deal of time with her family and friends, works as a foster care provider and a real-estate agent for Brokers 12 and finds pleasure in not having to take shots or worrying about the seriousness of diabetes.
Sturlaugson is also a strong advocate for organ donations because when one person donates his or her organs they can literally save and assists many lives.

“I didn’t know my donor, but I do know he was a young man who lost his life in a car accident who was adamant about organ donations,” Sturlaugson said. “I later met the man’s immediate family and they told me this man changed the lives of over 40 different people by being an organ donor. That’s includes me, so I am so thankful for that young man who gave me his pancreas and for others who today are organ donors.  They truly give the gift of life, which is an incredible gift.”

In this Advent season, when individuals celebrate the birth of the Christ child and His coming to save the world, remember that the best gift individuals can give this holiday season is to become an organ donor. In the season of giving, individuals, in their own unique way, have the chance to save others with severe medical conditions through organ donations. As Sturlaugson states every day, organ donation is the “gift of life.”

Every year, people waiting for an organ transplant are in the tens of thousands, but each year only a small fraction of those individuals who need an organ actually receive one because the U.S. lacks organ donors. To learn more about organ donation, go to the United Network for Organ Sharing at http://www.unos.org/