A year after a multi-organ transplant: Nursing student returns to Arkansas home

Kelly Baker’s research took her nearly 700 miles for a life-saving transplant.

By TJ Banes, IU Health Senior Journalist, tfender1@iuhealth.org

It was Aug. 13, 2025, when Kelly Baker was in the surgical care of Dr. Richard Mangus and a team of practitioners specially trained in multi-organ transplantation. In a seven-hour procedure Baker, received what she called a “modified multivisceral transplant.” The complex, life-saving surgery involved removing and replacing abdominal organs. For Baker, who endured years of sickness, that included a stomach, small intestine, large intestine, and pancreas.

IU Health’s Transplant Program is nationally ranked in both volume and specializations. IU Health is the only center in Indiana approved to perform all organ transplants and the only liver, lung, and pancreas transplant program in the state. IU Health is the only living liver donor transplant program in Indiana.

Baker, a nursing student learned about IU Health through research. After suffering intestinal failure, she was nourished through Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN). Her diagnosis: “Chronic Intestinal Pseudo-Obstruction (CIPO),” a rare gastrointestinal disorder. The condition causes severe abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, distension and constipation. So, Baker couldn’t live a life of typical teens – eating out, celebrating holidays with special meals, and even joining activities with her peers. Her life-sustaining nutrients were delivered through an IV, 16 hours a day. When she went to college to study nursing, she carried the weighty medical equipment with her to her 12-hour clinicals.

“The care I’ve received at IUH has been nothing short of amazing. The entire transplant team is incredible, and there’s no one else I would trust with my care. They have supported me through the hard days and been my biggest cheerleaders going back to nursing school,” said Baker. “My main team consists of my surgeon Dr. Mangus, my transplant coordinator Lisa Jobe, my incredible dietician Tracy Burch, my transplant pharmacist Beth Kelly, and nurse practitioner Smyrna Rivera.”

Baker marked her 21^st birthday two weeks after her surgery and to help her celebrate the milestone, Rivera, gifted Baker with a jar of monarch caterpillars. During her recovery Baker watched the caterpillars turn into butterflies and then released them outside the hospital.

While in Indianapolis, Baker made her home-away-from home with Fair Haven Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides free housing to IU Health patients and their families.

In August, after months of recovery, Baker packed her car and moved back to her home of Little Rock, Ark. When she left, the staff and volunteers of Fair Haven surprised her with a going-away party. Also, before she left Indiana, Baker received a sort of personalized memento of her transplant – a tattoo depicting a butterfly and a green ribbon, a symbol of hope and renewal through transplant.

Back in her home state, Baker is finishing her last year of nursing school at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. She will graduate in May 2027 and plans to return to Indiana hoping to work with other transplant patients through IU Health.

“Overall, I am feeling pretty good. I still struggle with fatigue and other side effects of my transplant medications, but I am a lot healthier and more stable than before my transplant. I am now able to eat for the first time in almost 10 years,” said Baker. She recently marked another milestone – one year off TPN after nearly eight years.

“None of this would be possible without my team at IU Health. They continue to work with me regularly to help me navigate this new chapter being back in school full time,” said Baker. For months after her transplant, she spent multiple hours every day in the outpatient clinic. “The nurses have become like family to me. They’ve been there through my worst days and helped me every step of the way through my recovery.”

The day she drove away toward her home state, Baker received a message on social media from one of her new friends: “Your Indiana family loves you so much.”