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Photo by John Wagner

FAIRBANKS — Heart transplant survivor Ray Cebulski is right back in the swing of things.

Back at work less than six months after a six-hour surgery, Cebulski is ready to return to his active role as a fundraiser for local nonprofit organizations.

And the 28-year-old transplant recipient is doing it all with a heart from a donor who turned out to have an unexpected connection to Cebulski’s neighborhood in Fairbanks.

Those involved say everything about the ordeal — Cebulski’s prolonged illness, the successful transplant in April, his swift recovery and the personal connection between donor and recipient — make Cebulski’s situation extremely unusual.

Cebulski says he’s better and healthier than ever and, judging from the 9-inch scar running down his chest, extremely lucky.

He recently moved up a rank at work to a full operations-technician at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital.

“Other than the fact that I have to take pills in the morning, I’m back,” he said Thursday in an interview at work.

Cebulski was diagnosed almost two years ago with the heart condition viral myocarditis, which causes a person’s heart to become inflamed and enlarged. He flew out of Fairbanks in March, bound for the offices of doctors who could help.

After a stop in Arizona in late winter, Cebulski and his parents arrived at Stanford University Medical Center. They received word April 28 that doctors had found a heart for Cebulski and would be operating immediately.

The heart had been donated by the family of a 24-year-old man killed two days earlier while crossing a busy street in Fresno, Calif. The man’s mother agreed to donate his heart, a decision that saved Cebulski’s life.

The next morning, the doctors were out of Cebulski’s operating room, declaring the transplant a “smashing success,” said his father, Curtis Cebulski. The donated heart turned out to be the same size as Cebulski’s, and the blood type also was the same.

As things progressed, Cebulski’s health remained strong, and his family’s hopes were buoyed as the prospect that his body could reject the new organ — an common outcome — started to fade. He was feeling well, and his heart and blood pressure were good.

“He even had the hiccups, which was not part of the plan,” Curtis Cebulski said.

Five days after the operation, Cebulski was released as an outpatient. He returned to work Aug. 21.

Prior to his return, a twist emerged in the story behind Cebulski’s new heart.

Cebulski met the family of the donor, Beau DeLima, two months ago while on a medical follow-up in California. A relative of DeLima’s asked if Cebulski would look up an old friend of his who moved to Fairbanks years ago. The man handed Cebulski a 3-by-5 card bearing the name and address of Don Kardash.

Kardash is a teacher at Hunter Elementary School in South Fairbanks. But Cebulski already knew that, because Kardash happens to live across the street from Cebulski’s house on Wanda Drive near Badger Road.

“We help each other out with house projects,” Kardash said. “He plows my driveway. I’ve helped him move furniture a couple of times — typical good-neighbor stuff.”

Kardash was a student teacher in Fresno before he moved to Fairbanks. While there, Kardash was close friends with Billy Ingram, DeLima’s uncle. But he said he hadn’t seen DeLima since the latter was a child, and the indirect connection between the donor’s family and the recipient left both parties in disbelief.

“I was just thinking, ‘What are the odds of that happening?’” Cebulski recalled of learning about the connection.

Ingram said Cebulski’s story has helped DeLima’s family cope with its loss.

“I believe it really helped the healing process to know that Beau’s heart would provide a miracle for someone else,” Ingram wrote Wednesday in an e-mail to the Daily News-Miner.

The ordeal

Both of Cebulski’s parents traveled south with him and, when he was released from Stanford, rented an apartment two blocks from the heart clinic.

Curtis Cebulski said the community of medical specialists and patients at Stanford was very supportive of his family. He and Ray also said those same specialists indicated Cebulski was lucky to have received a donated heart when he did, as his health had deteriorated toward the point of death.

There were heart transplant patients at Stanford from around the world, including the Philippines, Japan, England. The doctors were a marvel to watch, Curtis Cebulski said, particularly when they teamed up to fight what was one of Ray’s close calls.

Two weeks before the transplant, Cebulski said he felt a sharp pain and told the nurse he thought he might be having a heart attack.

“It felt like somebody had a knife in there,” he said.

It was a blood clot, and a medical team responded quickly. Cebulski said when he saw his old heart after the transplant, it had grown to twice its normal size and was “peppered” with dozens of clots. A single clot can be enough to kill someone.

“That’s when I figured out how lucky I was,” he said.

Cebulski credited the help of his friends, family and his supervisor at work, Dave Thompson, with helping him through the ordeal. He estimated those acquaintances collectively raised $70,000 to help cover the transplant and other related costs.

Thompson had a daughter survive leukemia, and Cebulski said his boss was understanding when Cebulski developed health problems and needed help. Thompson became someone he could talk to, a “pillar of strength,” he said

“It really helps to talk to somebody who already went through it and can give you and idea of what’s coming,” he said of his health crisis.

Cebulski said his department has been through a number of small crises in recent months. On Oct. 24, they are hosting a fundraiser at the hospital for another operations technician, Mark Perry, who recently was diagnosed with leukemia.

Curtis Cebulski said the months leading to and immediately following the transplant were torturous for all involved — hours of tedium followed by moments of sheer terror.

“It is very hard to describe the pain and suffering of all those involved in this, much less what Ray went through,” he said. “We can all now really understand the loss of anyone that is young and vibrant and well-liked to any disease.”

For now, the family is thrilled Cebulski seems healthy and that his body has shown little sign of rejecting his new heart. Cebulski noted he is taking only a few prescriptions to help him recover — far fewer than the norm.

That leaves him plenty of time and energy to organize the next dodgeball tournament and to raise more money for charities.

“After what I’ve been through, I have more reason than ever to fight for everybody,” he said.