After long illness, volunteer gives back at Mercy Gilbert

Last Christmas, Kate Frye lay in a hospital room thinking she might not live to see another season.

This year, the woman doctors call a "miracle" is working to bring hope and cheer to Mercy Gilbert Medical Center patients..

Frye spent 106 days in 2007 and 2008 in the hospital with pancreatitis and multiple organ failure. Now, she spends four hours a week bringing flowers, cards and snacks to patients.

The 54-year-old Chandler woman can relate to patients' feelings.

She asks them "What kind of day are you having?" because, she said, "How are you?" doesn't cut it.

Sometimes, during a hospital stay, patients see so many doctors and nurses, they dread seeing anyone come through their door, Frye said. She tries to cheer up the patients and make light of the situation.

"My experience as a patient gives me the ability to truly, not just guess what they might be feeling, but to know what they're feeling," she said.

Frye's husband Tim was laid off in October 2007. They were eating lunch and talking about what they were going to do when suddenly, Frye was violently ill.

She was taken to Mercy Gilbert and diagnosed with pancreatitis, which eventually led to multiple organ failure. She lost 90 percent of her pancreas and was in the hospital until March 2008 - meaning she spent all holidays from Halloween to Valentine's Day in the hospital.

Frye said she was lucky her husband was unemployed during her hospital stay. He was able to be with her at any time, 24 hours a day, and he spent hours researching her problems and possible treatments.

"He was my advocate and I could not have gotten through it without him," she said.

Frye wasn't always upbeat during her hospital stay.

She could hardly communicate with the doctors when she first arrived, said Radhika Janga, the primary doctor on her case. She seemed depressed and anxious to leave the hospital.

"We could make out that she was in pain, and that she was anxious," Janga said.

Tim was there to support and encourage her, and that helped, Janga said.

"Finally she turned around and she was so patient. She recovered and it's kind of miracle."

Now that she's back home, her life is changed, Frye said.

"I have a whole set of different life priorities now," she said. "You just have a different perspective when you go through an experience like this."

Before she fell ill, she was a purchasing manager for Residential Pools, handling contracts and supplies. She was something of a control freak, she said.

"There were so many things that I thought mattered. I thought everything had to be perfect," she said.

Because she's not yet fully recovered, she can't return to her job, so she stays at home and takes care of her puppy.

She also teaches Sunday school to 10-year-olds at the McQueen First Ward of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The experience brought her closer to her husband and her parents, and she discovered friends she didn't know she had, she said.

"I am a stronger, better person for having to go through it. And that's what I try to get through to the patients."

Kate Frye, a volunteer at Mercy Gilbert Medical Center, visits with patient Carmen Gutierrez.