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"Recovery was difficult and painful. Among other unpleasant
side effects, the steroids Janet needed to reduce inflammation
caused weight gain and triggered the onset of type 2 diabetes.
Through it all, her case manager called regularly with
information and encouragement.
“My case manager, Doris, and I would go over my medications,
side effects, and symptoms,” Janet says. “I needed support, and
she listened.”
Over the next few months, Janet began to feel stronger. In the
hospital, she had read a brochure about the Transplant Games, a
national Olympics-style event for transplant recipients held every other year. In 2006, she traveled to Louisville, Ky., with Team
Philadelphia and swam the 50-meter backstroke, the 50-meter breaststroke, and the 100-meter backstroke, for which she won
a silver medal.
Through the Gift of Life, the organization that coordinated her transplant and for which she now serves as a motivational
speaker, Janet has sent messages of thanks to the family that chose to donate her new heart. Although she did not receive
a reply and does not know whose heart saved her life, nonetheless through Gift of Life, Janet sent the family her first silver
medal. And if she places in this year’s Transplant Games, her medals will go straight to that special family.
Today, Janet no longer needs a case manager. To get information on staying well, she works with an IBC Health Coach.
“You have to have vision,” says Janet, who swims three days a week, is active in her church, and has returned to work, something
many transplant recipients are not well enough to do. “I visualized myself doing the things I wanted to do. And then I did them.”

"Our experienced,compassionate case managers help members navigate the health care system to achieve the
best possible outcome…and often inspiringresults.
Janet Dennis forced herself to open her eyes. Her
niece was crying. A member of her church was
praying. And her new heart was beating. If she
could have moved a muscle, she would have smiled.
“I was in grateful mode,” she remembers. “I had
survived a heart transplant.”
In 2004, Janet, 48 years old, a new grandmother, and
a member of Independence Blue Cross’s Keystone
Health Plan East HMO, was becoming shorter and
shorter of breath.
Doctors found that her heart, damaged by a virus, was enlarged,working at only 15 percent capacity, and
beating irregularly. She began using a defibrillator. But
her heart continued to fail. On her doctor’s advice, Janet enrolled in the heart transplant program at the
Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, which has
been recognized as a BlueDistinction Center for TransplantsSM by the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.
To help Janet successfully travel the challenging road ahead, IBC offered Janet a case
manager, Doris Williams-Cadell. Doris, a nurse for 22 years, reached out to Janet right away.
She understood the seriousness of Janet’s condition and that a successful transplant was her only hope.
As Janet became increasingly ill, she was admitted to the hospital. In the spring of 2005, after only a six-week
wait, her new heart arrived."