Colleague Spotlight: Chantel McClure

“When they say Swedish cares like family, they actually do, and I get to live it every day.”

Chantel McClure’s path to working at Colorado’s premier Level I Trauma, Burn and Comprehensive Stroke Center was nontraditional, to say the least. The story is one that touches every member of her family and the compassionate care teams across three hospitals in HCA Healthcare’s Continental Division.

Not Just A Nap

It all started in February 2023. Chantel’s son, Tommy, was a senior in high school and competing in the Kansas state wrestling tournament when he suddenly got sick. Initially, they thought it was a stomach bug the team had from traveling for regionals the week before. Because it was his last tournament, Tommy fought through feeling bad. After he was eliminated on the second day of the competition, he finally laid down to rest, but something about his fatigue just felt wrong. Chantel’s motherly intuition kicked in, and they took him to the emergency department at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, Kansas, where she worked as a pharmacy technician. It was Saturday night.

“They took his labs, gave him some fluids, and then they told me, ‘We can’t discharge him because his bilirubin (an indicator of liver health) is off the charts,’” Chantel said. When she asked what that meant, her nurse colleagues said they needed to admit Tommy for more tests. But instead of bringing him into a standard recovery floor, Tommy was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit, the first real sign that something was seriously wrong. Chantel’s world was about to be turned upside down.

As the weekend came to a close, the Wesley team was lining up liver specialists who could receive Tommy and Chantel. They finally got a match at HCA HealthONE Presbyterian St. Luke’s in Denver. Through Chantel’s HCA Healthcare benefits, they arranged the no-cost Air Med transport and arrived Tuesday morning. The transplant team was waiting for them.

“That's when everything just like hit like a ton of bricks. Dr. Clark Kulig explained everything. He said Tommy was in acute liver failure. His liver was dying and Tommy was dying, and we needed to get him on the transplant list right away,” Chantel said.

Lifesaving Intervention

The team at P/SL started pre-op testing Wednesday morning, and they were immediately in a race against time. Tommy wasn’t coherent enough to assist his care team, so Chantel and doctors decided it was best to sedate and put him on a ventilator. There were also neurological complications; brain swelling is common in patients with acute liver failure because the body is no longer processing waste. Doctors installed a “brain bolt,” an intracranial pressure monitoring device, to give real-time status updates.

“Dr. Kulig said if his brain pressure reaches 12, he couldn’t have a transplant. From 4:30 in the morning Wednesday to 10:30 at night, his brain pressure jumped from 0 to 8,” Chantel said. “There was just a feeling of hopelessness. The place no parent wants to be, watching your child slowly die and there’s nothing you can do.”

That night, fearing the worst, Chantel called Tommy’s sisters and some of her extended family to join them at the hospital. Her brother and his friend prayed a blessing over Tommy that his body would stay healthy for surgery and that he would be fully restored. Over the next 24 hours, Chantel and her family clung to that hope. “God has a hand in everything in our lives. I’ve seen it, and I know it. We were just sitting there, crying and talking, and my brother’s blessing kept coming back to me, and I just knew; I had to believe that’s how it was going to go,” Chantel said.

Thursday night, their prayers were answered. Dr. Thomas Heffron, the surgical director of P/SL’s transplant program, called to say they had a donor. Everything matched, and Tommy went in Friday morning for a liver transplant. Within hours, his skin color changed from sickly yellow back to normal, and he was healthy enough to be discharged the following week. Unfortunately, relief would be short-lived.

Within weeks, standard post-op testing started to show signs of trouble. Tommy’s bile ducts became blocked, causing a toxic buildup that began to damage his newly transplanted liver. Surgeons tried everything, from stents to drugs to drains. By May, he was in full-blown organ rejection, and doctors had no choice but to put him back on the transplant list.

Colorado Connection

Through it all, Chantel had been keeping Amber Meister, her pharmacy director at Wesley, up to date on Tommy’s progress. Chantel’s colleagues in Wichita had graciously pooled and donated their PTO so she wouldn’t have to worry about a paycheck while she transitioned to family medical leave, but helping Tommy through the countless tests and uncertainty was physically and emotionally exhausting. Chantel said she needed something to give her stability, and she found it by returning to support patient care. “Amber was such a blessing. I told her, ‘I need to work’, and she came up with the idea of me possibly being able to be a PRN tech in Denver. She was the one who connected me with Jackie McClintic, the pharmacy director at Swedish.”

While doctors were focused on helping Tommy negotiate his worsening symptoms, Chantel became a Colorado-licensed pharmacy technician and started at Swedish in May on an as-needed basis. The role gave her the flexibility to make sure Tommy was getting the care he needed, while also finding some comfort in her routine of caring for others.

“We jumped at the chance to bring her on,” Jackie said. “Immediately, she was a huge asset to our team here at Swedish, and as she shared more about what brought her out to Colorado, colleagues in the pharmacy and across the hospital really rallied around Chantel and her family.”

Tommy and Chantel stayed at Ronald McDonald House, a vital partnership for patient families in the Denver and Wichita areas, throughout his first transplant and the regular testing that discovered he would soon need another surgery. The charity helped Tommy feel like a kid as much as possible, organizing outings. “I knew Tommy was devastated by his diagnosis, but Ronald McDonald House was just amazing to help us stay positive. We were able to go to the zoo, aquarium and museums, knowing that as long as he could stay focused and stay busy, it was just a waiting game,” Chantel said.

Fateful Phone Call

Six prayerful weeks later, Dr. Heffron called to announce he had a potential match for Tommy. He personally went to evaluate this liver to reduce the chances of another failure. Chantel broke the news to Tommy and got him prepped for surgery. Within hours, Tommy was in recovery with a renewed opportunity for health and healing.

This time, they all had time to reflect on the sacred gift of organ donation. “He’s just 18, but Tommy had to grow up fast through all of this. He was thinking a lot about the other family, the one that lost their loved one so he could live. I could tell he was wondering if he was worthy of this new liver. And I told him, ‘Our family went through all of those same emotions, preparing in case it was us that had to make the difficult choice because we could have easily lost you the first time.’ I think seeing that through my eyes helped him kind of take a step back. Our focus now, after receiving such a wonderful gift, is to live each day in a way that reflects the gratitude we have for it,” Chantel said.

In addition to benefiting from HCA Healthcare’s free patient transportation for colleagues and significant savings by having Tommy’s testing and procedures at HCA Healthcare facilities, the family benefited greatly from the HCA Healthcare Hope Fund, a colleague-run and sponsored charity to support coworkers who need assistance while they’re facing the storms of life. Chantel said, “Again, it was Amber, my boss back in Wichita, who mentioned the Hope Fund, and I said, ‘Thanks, no thanks.’ But Amber wasn’t going to take no for an answer because she’s seen how it has really helped people. She told me to just fill out the forms and she’d handle the rest, and she did!”

“At Wesley and across HCA Healthcare, we’re very proud to be able to contribute to the Hope Fund. Many people give, and to know that our donations helped Chantel and will help people like her across the enterprise is just an awesome feeling. It’s one more way we can extend our mission to the care and improvement of human life to not only our patients but our amazing colleagues as well,” Amber said. Chantel says, thanks to the Hope Fund, she paid no out-of-pocket expense for Tommy’s treatments in 2023.

Improvement and Initiative

As Tommy got stronger and his weekly tests were showing good progress, Chantel was finding a deeper connection at Swedish. While she had been working pro re nata in Englewood, Colorado, her benefits were still tied to her full-time job back in Wichita, Kansas, where she was technically on extended family leave. While HCA Healthcare offers best-in-class benefits for colleagues, including double the industry standard of three months for extended leave, Chantel was quickly approaching the end of her coverage. She needed a lifeline, and, again, Swedish answered the call.

“It’s really what HCA Healthcare does across the enterprise,” said Dena Schmaedecke, Vice President of Human Resources at Swedish. “When one of our colleagues escalates a need like Chantel’s, our teams go all-in to find a solution. Each case is unique, and we’re equipped to give each one the unique attention it deserves. We’re very glad that Chantel’s transition has been so positive.”

“Helping to bring Chantel on full-time at Swedish was the right move for everyone involved,” said Adam Schmidt, pharmacy manager at Swedish. “Our entire leadership team was onboard; they knew we needed to do it. In the pharmacy, we needed to have her skills, intentionality and her spirit on our team. And we found a way to bring her on, right when she needed us.”

Chantel accepted a full-time pharmacy tech position at Swedish and maintained her benefits continuity so Tommy’s recovery would not be interrupted. Over the summer, doctors cleared him to not only attend college but to try out for the wrestling team. Jackie, Adam and other leaders at Swedish organized a farewell event before Tommy returned to Kansas to start school, not far from where his father lives. “It was a joy to see him off and for him to see all the support here, but as his mom, it was bittersweet too. Knowing everything we had to go through this last year and a half together, now I have to let him go start his adult life so he can become the man he needs to be,” Chantel said.

She, however, is staying put with her new Swedish family. Chantel’s perseverance and commitment to excellence have helped her advance into a newly created role within HCA HealthONE to support freestanding emergency rooms in the Denver Metro with key pharmacy and supply chain responsibilities, a move inspired by the expert patient care she witnessed at P/SL and Swedish. “I feel like I could be an instrument of hope for other people after everything I’ve been through. And my experience in [Swedish’s] pharmacy goes hand in hand with that. The hospital and our team have been so welcoming; I genuinely found a place that’s the right fit for me. I can’t say thank you enough for Jackie, Adam and Amber. Never for an instant did they stop supporting and believing in me. Words can't express my family's gratitude to all the people, including family, friends, colleagues and community members that helped us get through this trial. We are so grateful. Thank you!”

Click to learn more about HCA HealthONE Swedish, Wesley, HCA HealthONE Presbyterian St. Luke’s, HCA HealthONE’s Transplant Services, and careers available across our HCA Healthcare network of facilities and care centers.