Kimberlee Ryle has had plenty of time to study for the college entrance exam she'll take today. The 18-year-old Wilberforce girl has been lying around for the last two weeks . . . recovering from a heart transplant.

        “I feel pretty good, but I'm a little sore,” she says.

        Kimberlee, who starts her senior year at Xenia High School this fall, was in the hospital when she was originally scheduled to take the ACT. She wanted to leave the hospital to take the test, but her doctors talked her out of it.

        Staff at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center worked with the testing board, so Kimberlee could take the test in the hospital instead of having to delay it. Hospital staff volunteered to be proctors during the test.

        Where other transplant patients would be concerned about the surgery itself, Kimberlee was focused on other priorities.

        “Her big worry was missing that test,” says Dr. Jeffrey Pearl, the surgeon who performed the transplant. “I went in to see her the night before the surgery and she had a big stack of books out so she could study.”

Why her heart failed

        Before the transplant, Kimberlee suffered from dilated cardiomyopathy, an enlargement of the heart that makes the muscle weak and thin or floppy so the heart can't pump blood efficiently around the body. Fluid can build up in the lungs, which become congested, making breathing a struggle. Fluids can also build up in the tissues and organs of the body, including the legs and ankles, liver and abdomen.

        When she was 9, she got what her family thought was a virus that she couldn't shake.

        It wasn't a virus. She wound up spending 48 days in the hospital. “They didn't know what was wrong with her, but her organs were failing,” says her grandmother, Leota Harris.

        Further tests revealed her heart was failing. Kimberlee and her doctors don't know what caused the cardiomyopathy.

        From the time she was 9 until she was 13, Kimberlee was “in and out of the hospital,” her grandmother says. As new medications became available, Kimberlee was able to get her symptoms under control. She signed up for the cheerleading squad and the gymnastics team. She made the honor roll.

        “I was basically almost like a normal kid,” Kimberlee says, curled up on her hospital bed at Cincinnati Children's. A nurse has just hooked her up to a heart monitor, and any visitors have to wear masks to keep from sharing their germs with her. After the transplant, her immune system has been compromised. Sesame Street plays on the television set in her room and a stack of videotapes, including 10 Things I Hate About You, are piled on a chair.

        When she got to high school, Kimberlee started taking career prep classes in allied health, working toward her goal of becoming a nurse. She did a job-shadowing program at Children's Medical Center in Dayton.

        “I've wanted to be a nurse since I was, like, 7,” she says.

        This spring, something went wrong. The medications stopped working and her heart began to fail again. In April, she was admitted to the intensive care unit at Dayton Children's Hospital. The next month, she learned she needed a new heart and was put on the waiting list for a transplant.

        “And two days later, I got a call saying that they had a heart. Pretty fast, huh?” she says.

        Kimberlee transferred to Cincinnati Children's for the surgery.

        The procedure itself took about four hours, says Dr. Pearl, and went smoothly.

        “Her new heart started working right away with very good function,” he says. “She was up and around quickly with the same happy smile and the same good attitude.”

"She's very determined'

        Kimberlee missed school for most of April and May “but I made everything up” while in the hospital. When classes ended, she started studying for her ACT and she's hit the books every day she's been well enough.

        “I study two hours a night before I go to bed,” she says. “I like school. I hardly ever miss school unless I'm, like, really, really ill.”

        She thinks she's done “pretty well” preparing for the test, but she's a little worried about the reading section. “I don't like reading,” she says. She does like science.

        Studying is easy, since there's not a lot to do when you're stuck in a hospital bed all day, Kimberlee points out. She visits with friends and family, studies and watches TV and movies.

        Kimberlee's grandfather, William Harris, isn't at all surprised she's using her recovery time to study.

        “She's very determined,” Mr. Harris says.

        “She's a fighter,” her grandmother says, though she'd rather Kimberlee spent her time resting than studying. “I think it's too much stress on her, but it's what she wants to do, so I can't stop her.”

        Academics are a priority for Kimberlee's family. Every night, she and six of her brothers and sisters spend a “study hour” at the dining room table doing their homework or reading.

        “We're very proud of her,” Mrs. Harris says. “She's got better grades than all the other kids, and there ain't nothing wrong with them.”

        Recovery shouldn't be too difficult, Dr. Pearl says. Kimberlee will need to take it easy for a while after she's released from the hospital in what could be as soon this week. “She'll feel a lot better and have a lot more energy. She should be able to get back to all of her normal activities,” he says.

        She will have to take medication, including prednisone and cyclosporin, for the rest of her life to keep her body from rejecting her new heart.

        Her grandmother has a special appreciation for what Kimberlee is going through and for the gift she's received with the donor heart: Three years ago, Mrs. Harris donated a kidney to her son. Mrs. Harris plans to write a letter of appreciation to the donor's family.

Nursing is her goal

        Kimberlee hasn't decided where she wants to go to school yet, but she's considering several colleges in the region, including the University of Cincinnati and Wright State University. She plans to major in nursing and hopes to become a neonatal nurse.

        “I want to work with babies. They're so cute,” she says.

        “I think she'll make a good nurse,” Mr. Harris says.

        Mrs. Harris remembers the first time Kimberlee was hospitalized. “She's always wanted to be a nurse. She had all these bears and things and we came to see her, and the bears were all bandaged and taped from where she'd decided to fix them up.”

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