For most of her life, Kelly has known what it means to fight.
At just 13 years old, she was diagnosed with chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction, a rare disorder that causes the digestive system to gradually stop working. From that point on, eating became impossible. Nutrition came through an IV. And the normal rhythms of teenage life were replaced with hospital stays, infections, and constant uncertainty.
“I’ve been sick most of my life,” she says.
For years, Kelly learned how to adapt. She kept moving forward. She even began pursuing a nursing degree, determined to one day care for others.
But over time, her condition worsened.
By the age of 20, doctors in Arkansas were running out of options.
“It’s a rough thing to have to deal with when you’re 20,” she says. “They just didn’t have any other answer for me.”
Instead of giving up, Kelly started searching for answers. That search eventually led her more than 500 miles away to Indianapolis, where a transplant team was willing to take on her complex case. She was told that without a multivisceral transplant, hospice was her only option.
“I prayed about it and was like, ‘Is this really the path that I need to take?’ And I decided to go for it.”
After being listed for transplant, Kelly was told to expect a long wait, likely one to two years. Instead, just 27 days later, she received the call.
She was alone when her phone rang. Within hours, she was on the road, driving herself nearly ten hours to Indianapolis, unsure if the surgery would actually happen.
“I didn’t think it was going to happen,” she says. “Everyone I knew who had gotten this transplant, it had been multiple years or they had dry runs where the donor organs were not viable.”
Then, just 30 minutes outside the city, her phone rang again.
“They said, ‘The organs are on their way back and they all look good, and Dr. Mangus is going forward with surgery.’”
She pulled over on the side of the road.
“I just cried… I was like, ‘Is this actually happening?’”
A few hours later, in the early morning of August 13, Kelly went into surgery and received five new organs- small intestine, liver, pancreas, stomach, and colon.
Recovery has not been easy.
“They told us from the very beginning, you’re trading one can of worms for another one, hoping it’s better,” she says. “So that’s always a hard decision to make when you’re 20.”
Still, there have been moments that once felt impossible.
After eight years of IV nutrition, Kelly is now able to eat again.
“I went eight years unable to eat at all,” she says. “So it’s just been incredible now to be able to eat. And I went from having sepsis every couple months, to now being infection-free for almost a year.”
There are many hard days, but the progress is real.
Recovery from a multivisceral transplant has required Kelly to remain in Indianapolis for many months.
That is where Fair Haven stepped in.
Through Fair Haven, Kelly was given a place to stay during this extended season of recovery, removing a major source of stress at a critical time. Kelly has been staying in a Fair Haven apartment since December 2025. It has not only lifted a tremendous financial burden and made it possible for Kelly to continue to be carefully monitored by her medical team, but it’s also provided a place where she has built supportive relationships with Fair Haven’s staff and volunteers.
“I think that’s absolutely contributed to my recovery,” she says. “Because mental health is just as important as what you’re doing physically.”
And without the constant pressure of housing, she has been able to focus on healing.
“If you can’t physically just relax and your body’s not able to recover, you’re going to be in fight or flight survival mode all the time,” she explains.
Today, Kelly is looking ahead.
In the fall, she plans to complete her final year of nursing school. After graduation, she hopes to return to IU Health, not as a patient, but as a nurse.
“My plan is to move back here and to work in the transplant ICU at IU,” she says. “And to get to help other patients like that.”
“I’ve always wanted to work in ICU and critical care,” she says. “But I think transplant ICU is really where I want to be.”
Because she understands something few others can.
“It’s one thing for somebody to say, ‘I can imagine what you’re going through,’” she says. “It’s another thing to say, ‘No, I know what you’re going through.’”
Kelly knows her journey is not over. There are still unknowns ahead. But her perspective has changed.
“Every single day I have is a bonus day because of my donor,” she says.
Instead of focusing on what she has lost, she focuses on what she has gained: a future that once seemed out of reach is now taking shape.
One day at a time.
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