A whole new ballgame

Lifelong diabetic cured with pancreas transplant

By KIMBERLY M. WEYANDT

NARROWSBURG, NY — After a life-altering year, Sue Muller sips a cup of tea at her kitchen table, her blue insulin pump on the table with its batteries spilled out beside it. A diabetic since the age of 12, it wasn’t until Muller became very ill that she became eligible for the pancreas transplant that ultimately made her diabetes-free.

This time last year, Muller’s health took a dramatic turn for the worse. Diabetes had destroyed her kidneys and their function was rapidly declining.

“I started thinking, oh man… how am I going to live to be 50 or 60,” Muller said.

It came down to a choice between finding a donor and going on dialysis. With the support of the town behind them, Muller’s husband, Ted, gave her one of his kidneys. A life-changing event for the family, little did they realize it was just the beginning.

Muller returned home from the operation in July and, after several weeks of recuperation, returned to work. In November, her doctor called.

“Three months after the first operation they put me on the list for a new pancreas,” Muller said. “They told me I was a perfect candidate. I had diabetes for a long time and now I was having complications.”

In type-one diabetics, the pancreas does not produce enough insulin, a hormone that regulates blood sugar levels in the body. In a relatively new procedure, a pancreas transplant replaces the problem organ, correcting this type of diabetes. Although it is not considered a cure for diabetes, it is the closest doctors have come. The healthy pancreas is obtained from a donor who has suffered brain damage. After the transplant, the patient takes medicine to assure that the body does not reject the new organ.

“I kept asking the doctor: how successful is it at this point, and he was telling me [the success rate] was somewhere around 70 percent after the first year and 60 or 65 percent after five years,” Muller said. “I said, I’ll take those odds.”

With a short waiting list, it didn’t take long before Muller was at the top.

“I was happy and upset,” she said. “I was excited but I just kept thinking ‘what did I do to deserve this?’”

After the first two calls didn’t pan out, the doctors asked the Mullers to come to Mount Sinai in New York City. Three months after the first surgery, they arrived at the hospital where there was a room waiting for them.

“This is a good sign. I said, ‘this is it’,” Muller said.

After waiting all day, Muller was wheeled into the holding room around 3:30 p.m. At 6:00, she was in the operating room. Although she admits to being nervous, she said that it was not nearly as scary the second time.

“I knew what to expect, said Muller. “You get through things because what else are you going to do; you have to. And you have to try to stay calm because getting all crazy and losing your head is not a good thing to do,” she said.

Five days later, Muller was home again and feeling better than she had ever felt before.

For the first time in as long as she can remember, she does not need to have insulin coming into her body at all times.

Her blue pump sits on the middle of her kitchen table. She finally took the batteries out a few days ago.

“I don’t want to throw it away and I don’t want to put it away so I just keep it… just in case,” said Muller. “I think I’m afraid that if I put it away it will be a bad sign or something.”

Despite the strangeness of her new day-to-day life, Muller has started to notice changes in her health. Her legs are not as swollen and she is full of energy. With the new organ, many of the diabetic symptoms Muller suffered for the last 30 years will fix themselves.

“I feel different now, I’m starting to feel better,” she said.

“I was starting to get scared about the things that happen to diabetics as they get older,” she said. “Now, I think I might live to be an old lady.”

“After the first operation I thought, maybe it was just a way for God to tell me, be as optimistic as you can. This is going to happen and hopefully it will change your life for the better,” she said. “And it has.”

As for her husband, Ted, and their children, Thomas and Rebecca, “I think it’s just starting to hit them now,” Muller said.

“I keep telling them, ‘this is going to be a whole new ball game.’”