New Heart for Jenny Bulliner

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The 6 p.m. text message Thursday night from longtime Mc Donald's employee Jenny (Johnson) Bulliner--a patient for the past nine months in Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis-- to friends back in Du Quoin was simple: "The heart is here. Pray for the (donor's) family."

As the plane carrying the new heart took to the air in skies over Minnesota--donated by the family of a teenage victim--Barnes Hospital put its heart transplant team in place.

The transplant surgery began shortly after 9 p.m. Jenny was still in surgery at 4:40 a.m. as new text messages arrived from husband Will that the surgery was going well. By 5:40 a.m., Jenny was out of surgery and the heart was beating strong on its own.

The long wait was over.

Things had finally been squared with this 26-year-old Du Quoin woman--most recently an employee of Memorial Hospital in Carbondale-- who had given so much to so many during her life.

Family members have no idea when Jenny will be released from the hospital, but it could be only a matter of day.

Bulliner is the daughter of Dana and Kim Johnson of Du Quoin, had waited long enough for what would be her second heart transplant in 11 years.

Jenny was stricken by cancer at the age of 7, and by the age of 16 the cancer treatments had exhausted her heart.

She waited months for the first heart--in the throes of organ rejection-- and she has already waited over eight months for the second.

The nation's evolving donor program made it very likely that the second donor heart would avail itself. Because Jenny was a patient in St. Louis--in the Midwest--doctors were ready to accept a heart from anywhere in the United States.

Jenny was a longtime employee of Mc Donald's Restaurant in Du Quoin before taking a position at Memorial Hospital in Carbondale over a year ago.

Her husband is Will Bulliner.

With cutting edge medicine all around her, it was the insurance industry that let the family down.

It would not cover Jenny's second heart transplant because the first transplant creates a "pre-existing" condition.

American medicine that is the envy of the world falls apart under the shortcomings of the delivery system that it is at the mercy of.

Jenny's stay in Barnes Hospital got down to safety.

Jenny was admitted to Barnes before the holidays following a number of rejection "episodes."