Two Hearts Intertwined: How Ochsner Gave Sara Nelles a Second Chance at Life

By Maggie Serota | Photos courtesy of Sara Nelles

In 2015, 27-year-old Bay Area native Sara Nelles was thriving. She was making progress toward her MBA at Notre Dame de Namur University while working a fulfilling day job as the director of an after-school program. After earning her MBA, she aspired to begin a career in human resources. Sara was living away from her parents for the first time in her life, having recently moved into an apartment with a friend just outside of Oakland. When she wasn’t working or studying, Sara was going out with her friends and enjoying her newfound independence. By all accounts, Sara was a vibrant young woman with a bright future ahead.

“My life was blooming,” Sara recalled, “and then I got a fever that lasted for two weeks.”

Sara was born with a rare congenital liver disorder called Biliary Atresia which affects the bile ducts. She underwent a Kasai procedure to facilitate bile drainage when she was six weeks old and led an otherwise healthy life until she got sick—very sick—at age 27.

The decline in her liver function was

Sara Nelles and her parents, Mitch and Janet Nelles, along with her sisters Miriam Hillman (far left) and Erica Nelles (far right).

abrupt and severe. She became gravely ill in a very short amount of time.

“I went from stage one to stage four liver function or liver cirrhosis in two and a half months,” Sara said. “I was dying. There’s no way of getting around that. I couldn’t walk. I had so much ammonia built up in my brain that I didn’t even know who I was.”

Sara was living on borrowed time. She needed a liver transplant to save her life. If she stayed in the Bay Area, she was facing a two-year wait for a transplant. Her parents, Janet and Mitch Nelles, investigated other treatment facilities and were tipped off to Ochsner. Mitch fired off a quick email to Ari J. Cohen, MD, renowned transplant surgeon and Medical Director of the Ochsner Multi-Organ Transplant Institute. Mitch was stunned when he received a response from Dr. Cohen almost immediately.

“He literally got back to me in minutes,” Mitch said. “He basically said, ‘Bring her out here. We’ll get her transplanted.’”

And so they did. Upon arriving, the Nelles family was blown away by the attention, care and kindness they

received from the entire Ochsner staff throughout Sara’s two-and-ahalf-month stay. “It was an amazing experience,” Sara said. Traveling across the country to receive a transplant while gravely ill was terrifying, but the Ochsner team—from doctors, nurses, and social workers to support staff— instantly put the family at ease with their warmth and attentiveness.

In addition to receiving life-saving

Sara Nelles with her sister, Miriam Hillman, and her niece, Annie.

care, Sara grew close to the team who treated her, and still regards them as family.

“She’s in contact with one of the social workers that we met there,”

Janet said. “Sara was in her late twenties, and the social worker was probably my age or a little older, and they just became friends. When we went back there after a year for their annual holiday party, Sara went out shopping with her for the day. For seven, eight hours, they were gone. They went out for lunch. They tried on stuff. Besides being a place of excellence, the staff at Ochsner are so compassionate and empathetic.”

Mitch echoed that sentiment, adding: “Ochsner is really a special place. I’ve never met such a group of people who were so kind and dedicated to patient care as well. It’s just, it’s unbelievable.”

As Dr. Cohen tells it, providing an exceptional bedside manner is standard operating procedure.

“That’s what it’s all about is focusing on the patient, and how you would want to be treated yourself, and how you’d want your family to be treated,” Dr. Cohen explained. “Our entire team is like family. Over the past 20 years, we’ve added a lot of staff to our team, and very few people leave us. All of us together focus on what’s important: the patient. Everyone who joins our team likes to be part of our team, especially the part where we all put our heads together and take care of these people.”

“Ochsner is really a special place. I’ve never met such a group of people who

were so kind and dedicated to patient care

as well. It’s just, it’s unbelievable. ” — Mitch Nelles

“That’s what it’s all about is focusing on the patient, and how

you would want to be treated yourself, and how you’d want

your family to be treated. ” — Ari J. Cohen, MD

Within 11 days of being admitted to Ochsner, Sara received a call that an organ was available for her. Lauralyn Picard, a 12-year-old girl from New Iberia, passed away from an undiagnosed heart condition.

From getting sick to undergoing a successful transplant surgery, Sara’s life was in limbo for about two and a half months. Thanks to her outstanding treatment at Ochsner, Sara beat the odds and remains forever grateful for her second chance at life.

Yet there was still something she had to do to gain closure: meet Lauralyn’s family, offer condolences on their loss, and express her gratitude. A year after her transplant, Sara returned to Louisiana after her donor’s mother reached out with an invitation to a benefit that just so happened to coincide with Sara’s 29th birthday.

“On my next birthday, I went back and I met her whole family in New Iberia’s SugArena in 100-degree weather,” Sara recalled. “But it was the most amazing experience.” Lauralyn is never far from her thoughts, as Sara wears a necklace emblazoned with the girl’s photo along with another necklace made of intertwined hearts to commemorate the one-year anniversary of her transplant.

“The two hearts are supposed to be my heart and her heart,” Sara explained. “I designed it and I had it made and I wear that every day. And we do a balloon release for her every August.”

Sara’s experience at Ochsner touched her in profound ways. “I don’t know anyone that has this kind of bond with the staff at a hospital, especially when I’m not even treated by them anymore,” Sara said. She returns to New Orleans every year to attend the organization’s fundraising events. “I love New Orleans. I love everything about it,” Sara said. “I love the culture, I love the city. I love it, it gave me back my life.”

Mitch and Janet are also annual donors, and the family has thrown fundraisers in their homebase in Northern California, including a fundraising party in their home in 2017 to help benefit a new imaging center.

Coming face-to-face with her mortality also motivated Sara to reconsider her future. Instead of pursuing a career in business, Sara followed her passion and became a special education teacher. After finishing her MBA, Sara went back to school and is in the process of earning a graduate teaching degree. She now teaches sixth grade special education. Sara imagines if she hadn’t experienced that brush with mortality, she would have dismissed her teaching aspirations.

“I have a second chance at life; I should do whatever I want,” Sara said. What she wants most: to live to the fullest in honor of Lauralyn, who gave her that second chance.

“Everything I do now is for her, ” Sara said, her voice breaking between sobs. “Everything I do is for her.”