A fresh start with a new heart

Megan Gagliardi is down to three doctor visits a year. But when she’s there, people are surprised that she is the patient who received a heart transplant and underwent cancer treatments just a few years ago.

“When she has to have a biopsy done, there’s a lot of doctors [at the hospital] who have never met her or seen her, and when they’re told what she’s been through, they’re like ‘No way,’” said Lynne Gagliardi, Megan’s mother. “I think it’s kind of cute that they’re even kind of amazed at her spirit.”

When Megan Gagliardi was a senior at Mountain Brook High School in 2011, she was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy — an enlarged heart. The doctors put her on medication, and that fall she started school at Samford University, but her health did not improve.

“October hit and I just kind of hit a wall where I was struggling with keeping up with school and keeping up with friends and trying to do everything all at once while still having this new health problem,” Gagliardi said.

She got a pacemaker that October, and in November she was put on the transplant list. 

“On my 19th birthday, in March [2012], I got the phone call for the heart,” Gagliardi said. “My mom always jokes, ‘That’s the best birthday present you’re going to get.’”

Before she needed a transplant, Gagliardi did not know much about organ donation and she was not registered as an organ donor. There were around 20 people in Alabama waiting on a heart when she received a transplant. At the end of 2015, there were 34, according to the Alabama Organ Center. 

“You don’t realize what big of a need there is for organ donation, but there’s definitely a lot of people waiting,” Gagliardi said.

“There are so many people waiting for so many things, and people shouldn’t feel like, ‘Oh I don’t have good enough organs,’ because they can really help so many people,” her mother said. “It’s just the most beautiful gift.”

Following the transplant, Gagliardi was put on immunosuppressive medication to prevent her body’s rejection of the new heart. That medication, however, made her more vulnerable to other health problems. 

Nine months after she received her transplant, she was diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. 

“I think hitting that rough patch again was really hard because that kind of knocked me down a little bit, and I had to figure out not only how to handle a new heart but how to handle going through chemo,” Gagliardi said.

A few things helped her through that period of recovery — friends, family and her faith. Her favorite verse is Psalm 73:26.

“This is one that people would always send to me in a text as a reminder while I was going through all of this. ‘My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever,’” Gagliardi said. “Not only has our faith strengthened, but I think our family has become so much closer.”

The community also rallied around their family, bringing meals and giving notes of encouragement. After only living in Mountain Brook for a year, they were touched by the immense support.

“They just have no idea what that means when you’re at the hospital until 6:00, to come back to a meal,” said Lynne Gagliardi. “Just really precious new friends that took it and ran to meet our needs.”

After six chemotherapy treatments in five months, the cancer was gone and Gagliardi was back on the road to full health. Since then, Gagliardi said her goal is to live life to the fullest.

“When you’re healthy all the time, you don’t really think about it,” Gagliardi said, “but when you’ve been on the other side of spending a good chunk of your 18-year-old, 19-year-old life in the hospital, the days where you can go for a run and spend time with friends, you value them and appreciate them

a lot.”

Once she was back to full health, Gagliardi started running. She had always been healthy, she said, but not very active. Last February, Gagliardi ran the Mercedes Half-Marathon — her first half-marathon — and she hopes to complete a full marathon as well.

She keeps as busy as she can with school and internships to the point “even her internships have internships,” her mother joked.

Even though she does not have an exact plan for after her graduation this year, Gagliardi said she knows she will continue to take advantage of her health. She wants to move away from Birmingham and one day write a book, something her mother has encouraged.

As she moved through life post-transplant, she said friendships with other transplant patients helped her. She hopes to do the same for others with a book about her life.

“I definitely want to try and write a book sometime,” Gagliardi said. “I feel like with such an interesting story, I would love to reach out to other people and just kind of encourage them, especially the younger kids who are going through this.”

For more information about organ donation, visit alabamaorgancenter.org.