{"82501":{"#nid":"82501","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Student Survives Rare Five-Organ Transplant to Graduate with Highest Honors, Astronaut John Young to Address Graduates","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAstronaut and alumnus John Young will deliver the addresses at the Georgia Institute of Technology\u0027s 217th commencement ceremony on Saturday, December 13, at 9 a.m. at Alexander Memorial Coliseum. Approximately 1,450 students are expected to get their degree.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EYoung received his bachelor\u0027s degree in aerospace engineering in 1952. Since then, he has dedicated his entire professional life to the pursuit of perfecting spaceflight as a tool for the advancement of humankind.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAssociate director (technical) of NASA\u0027s Johnson Space Center since 1996, Young is responsible for technical, operational and safety oversight of all NASA programs and activities assigned to the center. As an active astronaut, he remains eligible to command future shuttle astronaut crews.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EYoung\u0027s NASA career began in 1962 when he was selected as an astronaut. His first flight was with Astronaut Gus Grissom aboard Gemini 3 in 1965. He subsequently served as commander of Gemini 10 in 1966 and as command module pilot of Apollo 10 in 1969.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIn 1972, Young served as spacecraft commander for Apollo 16, a lunar exploration mission. Young made aeronautical history in 1981 as spacecraft commander of the first flight of the space shuttle, the orbiter Columbia. Columbia was also the first winged re-entry vehicle to return from space to a runway landing.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ETwo years after the Columbia flight, Young served as spacecraft commander of the first Spacelab mission, whose six-man crew performed more than 70 experiments. The mission returned more scientific and technical data than all the previous Apollo and Skylab missions combined.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAltogether, Young has logged more than 14,000 hours of flying time in props, jets, helicopters, rocket jets and spacecraft, including 835 hours in six space flights. Administrative appointments with NASA include chief of the Space Shuttle Branch of the Astronaut Office, chief of the Astronaut Office, and special assistant to the director of Johnson Space Center for Engineering, Operations and Safety.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EPrior to joining NASA, Young was a test pilot in the U.S. Navy. His test projects included evaluations of the Crusader and Phantom fighter weapons systems. In 1962, he set world time-to-climb records to 3,000-meter and 25,000-meter altitudes in the Phantom. Young retired from the Navy as a captain in 1976, concluding 25 years of active military service. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EYoung has received numerous honors. These include the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, three NASA Distinguished Service Medals, NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal and Outstanding Achievement Medal, NASA Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal, two Navy Distinguished Service Medals and three Navy Distinguished Flying Crosses. Young has also received the Georgia Tech Distinguished Young Alumni Award, Distinguished Alumni Service Award and the Exceptional Engineering Achievement Award.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESix Years and Seven Organ Transplants Later, Student Graduates with High Honors\u003C\/strong\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWhen Kathryn Smith enrolled at Georgia Tech in the fall of 1997, she knew the road to graduation wouldn\u0027t be easy, but she had no idea she would have to struggle for her life. After just her first week at Tech, complications from a liver disease forced her to spend two weeks in intensive care. After her first year, she underwent a liver transplant. The next month she had another transplant and lapsed into a coma. Eight months later she endured a rare five-organ transplant involving her small intestine, liver, pancreas, kidney and stomach. Her doctors didn\u0027t expect her to live, but Smith fought for her life. On Saturday, she\u0027s not only graduating with a bachelor\u0027s degree in psychology, she\u0027s doing so with highest honors. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022I didn\u0027t think I would get through it,\u0022 said Smith. \u0022You hope you just get out of the hospital first and then you just hope you can walk. It helped me more than anything to come back here [to Tech], because it forces you to do things, rather than sitting around,\u0022 she said.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ENow Smith is applying to medical school. \u0022I\u0027ve always wanted to be a doctor, but this experience has strengthened my desire,\u0022 she said. \u0022I think I can bring something unique because I\u0027ve been on the other side of it.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ESmith\u0027s ordeal began when she was still in high school. In 1996, she was diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis, a disease that causes the immune system to destroy the liver. With her liver functioning at 50 percent of capacity, she enrolled at Georgia Tech in the fall of 1997.  The day after she got her bid from her sorority, she passed out and spent the next two weeks in intensive care at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, where she was placed on a transplant list.  She finished up her first year at college and was beginning the next one when she got the call that a liver had become available.  \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAfter the surgery, she thought she was in the clear. \u0022I remember waking up and thinking that was easy. It was almost too easy,\u0022 she said. Within a week of the operation, the liver failed, weakened by a blocked artery. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIn December 1998, a month later, Smith had a second transplant, which was plagued by complications.  Her intestines began to shut down.  When the doctors told her parents she had just 24 hours to live, they gathered their friends and family for a prayer vigil at the hospital.  Whether it was the hospital, prayer or the love of her family and friends; she doesn\u0027t know. She spent the next month unconscious but alive.  \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ESmith\u0027s ordeal wasn\u0027t over. The next few months would be filled with infections that not only made another transplant impossible but also threatened her life.  Again, her doctors predicted she wouldn\u0027t make it.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022The doctors said there was nothing more they could do. Then my Mom asked about an intestinal transplant,\u0022 Smith said.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EShe not only needed a new liver but also a small intestine, kidney, pancreas and stomach. In January 1999, she was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami for an operation that had only been performed 11 times before.  \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIt took until August for the infections to clear up enough to allow her to undergo the five-organ transplant. She was so weak that the doctors only gave her a 50 percent chance of surviving the 21-hour surgery.  Again, she beat the odds, but things would get much worse before they got better.  She spent the next nine months in the hospital battling infection after infection.  Drugged and exhausted, Kathryn began to experience hallucinations and depression.  \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022I woke up and had no idea where I was. I couldn\u0027t walk. I couldn\u0027t sit up. You take all that stuff for granted,\u0022 she said.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EShe finally went home in October 2000 and spent a year recuperating. Her parents\u0027 support, Smith said, was critical to her recovery.  \u0022My mom made me keep little goal cards that said \u0027sit up for three hours, walk to the end of the bed.\u0027\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ESmith took a few classes at Augusta State before returning to Tech in August 2001. Now that she\u0027s graduating, medical school is her next challenge. It won\u0027t be easy. She still has to take medication to suppress her immune system to keep her body from rejecting the organs. That\u0027s not going to stop her. \u0022If I always stopped when people said I couldn\u0027t do it, I wouldn\u0027t be here,\u0022 Smith said.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EKathryn Smith is active in the Georgia Transplant Foundation and LifeLink, a nonprofit organ and tissue recovery organization. She returns to Miami every three months for medical checkups and to visit other transplant patients.\u003C\/em\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"When Kathryn Smith enrolled at Georgia Tech in the fall of 1997, she knew the road to graduation wouldn\u0027t be easy, but she had no idea she would have to struggle for her life.","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27304","created_gmt":"2003-12-12 01:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:02:02","author":"Matthew Nagel","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2003-12-05T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2003-12-05T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"82511":{"id":"82511","type":"image","title":"Astronaut John Young","body":null,"created":"1449178087","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:28:07","changed":"1475894698","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:44:58"},"82521":{"id":"82521","type":"image","title":"Kathryn Smith","body":null,"created":"1449178087","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:28:07","changed":"1475894698","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:44:58"}},"media_ids":["82511","82521"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/home\/index.html","title":"NASA"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.gatransplant.org\/","title":"Georgia Transplant Foundation"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.lifelinkfound.org\/","title":"LifeLink"}],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Tech Media Relations\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELaura Diamond\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:laura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Elaura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-894-6016\u003Cbr \/\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-660-2926\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["david.terraso@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}