THE FOLLOWING IS A NEWS-GAZETTE STORY BY JENNIFER BAILEY
ABOVE: Kelly Manning Ingalsbe with grandson Greysin Hansen.
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INDIANOLA — In this village of only around 250 people in southern Vermilion County, “when someone is going through something, we all pull together,” resident Lucinda Goble said.
Goble has been friends with Kelly Manning Ingalsbe for as long as she can remember, and when she saw that Ingalsbe was offered a heart for transplant this week but that her medical team didn’t think it was the best one for her, she knew she had to do something more for her lifelong friend.
“I am a strong believer in the power of prayer, and I just wanted to get more people praying about the same thing, at the same time, the same place,” Goble said.
So, she posted on Facebook, with Ingalsbe being on board with it, “Ok people! Monday, July 1 at 7 p.m. at the Indianola Park, we are having a prayer vigil for Kelly Manning Ingalsbe. She has been in the hospital for more than a month waiting for a heart transplant. There is mighty power in prayer, and when God’s people come together! Please share this and I hope to see you all on Monday!”
The post was also shared on the village’s social-media page, stating “Let us come together as a community to send prayers and thoughts to a member of our village.”
Ingalsbe, 58, is about two hours away from home at OSF St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria, but she said she feels and is grateful for the support from friends and family.
Ingalsbe had her first quadruple bypass surgery at age 38 and is now waiting for a heart transplant.
She has to stay in the hospital until her transplant, “which makes it hard,” she said. “I’m missing my family.”
Her sister, who staying at the hospital’s Family House, takes a shuttle back and forth to the hospital to be with her.
Ingalsbe’s husband, Joe, is in planting season and is busy with farming.
“Life is life and he still has to work,” she said. “He makes it one day a week here.”
Her sons live in Ridge Farm and Danville. She said her brother-in-law also is coming once a week to see her. Another sister died of cancer a couple decades ago.
“Life hits you all at once sometimes,” Ingalsbe said. “I have strong faith in the Lord. No matter how this ends up, I’m ready.”
Being in the hospital today waiting for a heart transplant goes back to those medical issues from 20 years ago.
Ingalsbe was born and raised in Georgetown and moved to Indianola, two doors down from her sister after she moved there. That was more than 28 years ago.
Ingalsbe has been married for 28 years. Her sons are Tyler Hansen, 36, of Danville and Lucas Ingalsbe, 25, of Ridge Farm.
She worked as a certified nursing assistant for many years and became a nurse in geriatrics. She’s worked in home care and hospice, and dialysis with Dr. Brijnandan Sodhi in Danville.
She said it’s ironic that she had to have dialysis for a month, due to an acute situation, in the same place she used to work.
“That was lucky,” she said.
Ingalsbe said her medical journey started when she was 38 and started having chest pain. She initially thought she had the flu, having dizziness and vomiting, but those are also symptoms of a heart attack, too.
She said she went to work that Monday, but still wasn’t feeling well. She was told to go home, so she called her mom and sister to come and get her.
She’d been vomiting for quite some time on and off and her mom and sister drove her the short distance from her workplace to the Danville hospital.
Ingalsbe said her electrocardiogram was abnormal and “that’s kind of where it all started.”
Further tests found she had five heart blockages, and she ended up having quadruple bypass surgery at 38.
“Basically, along the way, I’ve had four heart attacks and so many stents,” she said, that she can’t even remember the number.
She’s been in different hospitals, including in Indianapolis and both in Urbana.
Finally, her OSF HealthCare cardiologist said it’s time for a heart transplant.
Ingalsbe said she thought it was time for a third bypass/open-heart surgery. But the veins in her legs had already been used for previous surgeries and the ones in her arms were not sufficient enough for a bypass, she said.
“So, transplant was our next option,” she said.
At first the cardiologist told her she wasn’t ready for a transplant, saying her heart was not that bad. That went on for about two years, she said.
Then, at the beginning of May, she was told her ejection fraction — how hard your heart pumps, which determines how much oxygen is in the blood flowing through your body — was down to 25 percent. In 2015, her ejection fraction was 10-15 percent.
Ingalsbe said they put her on a balloon pump, and “it kind of got better on its own. It got back to normal, actually.”
However, later on, they didn’t put in a balloon pump, and had her on a LifeVest that would shock her if she went into cardiac arrest.
She wore the vest until a May 17 appointment. She was running a little bit behind for the appointment in Peoria and was dropped off at the front of the building and walked fast to the office. By the time she got there, she was having a chest pain and had nausea.
After another EKG, she was sent by ambulance from the doctor’s office to OSF St. Francis Medical Center.
“That’s how everything really got started,” Ingalsbe said.
She’s been in the hospital over a month and was told this week that a heart was offered but her medical team declined it due to its ejection fraction only being 40 percent. Ingalsbe said the normal range is 59 percent and higher.
“If you’re going to do it, you want the best outcome,” she said.
Ingalsbe is small and mighty, which is in her favor, standing 4-foot-91/2 and with an ironically B positive blood type.
“Both of those are good,” she said, saying that a bigger person would require a larger heart. “They say that gives me a better chance of a heart quicker.”
That timeframe is unknown. It could be 24 hours to up to six months.
She said they don’t anticipate it taking six months.
Ingalsbe said she appreciates all the support from home, including her longtime friend, Goble.
She said they’ve been friends since she moved to Indianola.
“We used to go to the same little church,” Ingalsbe said.
She said friends and family also have helped with donations, financially, such as to help her sister with her meals, and nightgowns because she’s tired of hospital gowns.
“I’ve been blessed with many contributors,” Ingalsbe said.
She also appreciates the prayers.
“It’s such a little community, and it’s really great,” she said of the planned prayer vigil.
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