By Will Chavez
Staff Writer 

HULBERT, Okla. – A Cherokee family from this small Cherokee County town is still waiting for a new heart for one of its members. 

Two-year-old Kevlynn Jenkins has been in St. Louis since January receiving treatment for dilated cardiomyopathy, which prevents the heart from pumping blood efficiently because it weakened and enlarged. 

She was released from the hospital in mid-January to wait for a heart but has been staying at the Ronald McDonald House in St. Louis with her mother Kristal. 

“The doctor told them last week that it’s taking longer than he thought, so he’s going to let them come home and wait,” Kevlynn’s grandmother Pat Garrett said. “She’s doing good. Looking at her you couldn’t even tell she is sick. Right now the medicine is doing its job; she’s got energy and she’s eating.”

Once a donor is found, Kristal has made arrangements to fly Kevlynn from the Tahlequah airport to St. Louis, Garrett said. She also has arranged for in-home nursing care once Kevlynn comes home, and the toddler will visit a cardiologist regularly while waiting for a heart.

Garrett and a sister left on March 11 for St. Louis to pick up Kevlynn and Kristal. It’s a seven-hour drive, but she said she didn’t mind because her granddaughter was expected to come home. 

“They’ve accumulated a little bit of stuff, boxes of stuff, so I’m going to go up and help them get back,” Garrett said. 

She said February fundraisers for Kevlynn went well. A spaghetti dinner, money jars left at stores in Hulbert and a raffle raised $4,100. The money will pay for expenses incurred while Kristal and Kevlynn stayed in St. Louis, as well as travel expenses. 

Garrett praised the Masonic Lodge in Hulbert for donating the spaghetti dinner and contributing $1,000 to her granddaughter’s fund. The Cherokee Nation also assisted the family with housing expenses during their stay in St. Louis.

“For a small town like Hulbert, I could not believe the turnout. That’s quite a bit of money for Hulbert. I think the smaller town, the bigger the heart,” she said. 

Garrett, of Stilwell, explained her granddaughter’s heart condition is genetic. The mother carries the gene, but usually it only affects males. 

“My dad, my younger brother and my son all died from it,” she said.

When Kevlynn was born with a heart murmur at CN W.W. Hastings Hospital in Tahlequah, she was sent for further testing in Tulsa where it was confirmed she had dilated cardiomyopathy.

Garrett regularly encourages people to donate their organs. She and her daughter are listed as organ donors, as well as Kevlynn. 

National figures show about 74 people receive an organ transplant daily. However, about 17 people die each day waiting for a transplant due to a shortage of donated organs.

Successful transplantation is often enhanced by matching organs between members of the same racial and ethnic group, according to the National Minority Organ and Tissue Transplant Education Program. However, in Kevlynn’s case, Garrett said doctors are not necessarily searching for a heart donated from a Native American, just a compatible one.
 









If you are interested in
donating to Kevlynn Jenkins’ cause, you can donate to the Kevlynn Jenkins
Medical Fund at any Bank First in Oklahoma. Also, the family will be having a
community yard sale on April 3 at the Norwood Fire Department, which is located
south of Hulbert, Okla. For more information, call (918) 905-1515. 
 








Reach Staff Writer Will Chavez at (918) 207-3961 or will-chavez@cherokee.org