The IU Health cardiac nurse began her career there as a patient

Indianapolis, Indiana – Jaelyn Kinchelow is a little bit unusual from other nurses in that she didn’t choose to become a nurse until later in her education, perhaps on a career day or in health class.

One of the sickest patients Methodist Hospital has ever seen, she had heart surgery as a teenager. As she lay there in that hospital bed, she murmured to herself, “I can do this too,” as she gazed about.

If you’re looking for Kinchelow right now, she works as a nurse at Methodist Hospital’s heart vascular critical care unit.

She occasionally works as a nurse in room seven, which is the same location where she healed following a heart transplant procedure in 2022.

Her journey began in 2012, when she was barely 14 years old, when she was taken to Methodist Hospital by ambulance after an Avon track meet. She was eventually treated at Riley Hospital for Children, though the reason why first responders took her to an adult hospital when she was a teenager is still unknown.

“My coronary artery tore. They call that a heart attack,” Kinchelow said. “We went into emergency surgery. I had to have bypass surgery, an open heart surgery on my heart, and then coming out of surgery, my heart function was only at 20% or so.”

In Kinchelow’s story, ten years pass. She had severe cardiac issues as a teenager, but things briefly improved. She had to put her studies on hold at the age of twenty-four in order to undergo a heart transplant just as she was ready to begin her last semester of nursing school.

“The whole time, all I could keep thinking was I couldn’t go back to school,” Kinchelow said. “I am very much a school girly, like, I wanted to get it over with. This is my dream job. So, having to pause on my dreams to make sure I was okay so I could take care of other people, I didn’t understand it at first.”

It took Kinchelow ten years to fight for her life before receiving a transplant. The sickest heart and lung patients are given access to ECMO machines, which she was placed on.

“It’s the highest level of life support we have to offer someone outside of the operating room,” said Dennis Disney, an IU Health respiratory therapist. “For me, it’s almost incomprehensible for her to have gone through what she went through in 2012, chose to pursue nursing, had the speedbump during her schooling. For her to wind up here with us? Pretty remarkable.”

Many of the staff workers who individually handled Kinchelow’s care in 2012 and 2022 still work with her now. Disney is among these associates. For him and the other medical personnel, it’s a bizarre experience.

“She’s the first that I am aware of that was on ECMO, and then came back later to work with us,” Disney said.

For the numerous caregivers who are aware of Kinchelow’s narrative, she represents optimism on the ground.

“If you met Jaelyn Kinchelow, she is a category 5 hurricane,” Disney said. “She is a force of nature.”

Kinchelow was given to Tim Smith, a registered nurse, as a patient; however, his role was to oversee her ECMO machine rather than provide nursing care. He is aware of the tremendous struggle she endured to be a nurse in their unit today.

“She’s an inspiration to us because we do know, and we remember her as that little 14-year-old girl,” Smith said. “She just inspired us. We were inspired before we even knew she was coming back to us. We were inspired that she survived.”

“She’s a gift to us as her peers and she may not realize this, but as she gains time in the unit, she will come to realize this,” Disney said. “The greatest gift we get as caregivers is when people come back.”

Although Kinchelow only wants to be a decent nurse and doesn’t want to be the center of attention, she understands that occasionally her patients need support from someone who genuinely understands their suffering.

“The ones that just kinda seem anxious. The ones that are just kinda like they don’t know if they’re going to make it out of the hospital safe,” Kinchelow said. “Those are the people that I confide in. So, you asked me earlier, why? And that’s my why. I can be that advocate for my patients and I can also relate to them.”

According to Kinchelow’s estimation, she has disclosed her heart transplant to just four patients.
Kinchelow wants people to know that organ donation gave her everything since she is aware of how special her heart is.

Kinchelow’s narrative is far from over. She needs to take her medication and lead a healthy lifestyle in order to preserve her transplanted heart. She is aware that this gift has enabled her to care for several patients in the same manner that nurses used to care for her.