Fed up with the hassle of online dating, Kaleena Cheal was ready to delete the dating app she had been using, but something compelled her to scroll through one last time. When the 32-year-old got to the last profile in her matches, she paused. It was a face she recognized. So, she sent him a message.
Jordan Marcia was also tired of online dating. He initially ignored the message from the app saying there was a message waiting.
“Something in my gut told me to check. So, I went and checked it and saw the name ‘Kaleena’! I know this person!” recalls Jordan, also 32 years old.
And that’s how Kaleena and Jordan reconnected more than 16 years after the two of them met at camp for transplant kids.
Jordan was born with a rare, congenital heart condition, which led to multiple surgeries. He spent most of his early years in the hospital. When he received a heart transplant at the age of four, it was his 13th surgery.
Even that was touch and go, as Jordan recalls, “After I got the transplant, the new heart stopped as I was coming out. The doctor had to put his hand in my chest and pump his heart with his hands.”
He was told at the time of his transplant that ten years was about the average survival rate for a heart transplant recipient. From there, he vowed to live life to the fullest.
Kaleena was around 10 when her kidneys quickly deteriorated. She and her family lived in Kelowna at the time, and they had to drive back and forth to BC Children’s Hospital a lot. Kaleena remembers the experience as shocking and, at her young age, it was difficult for her to truly understand what was happening.
“I remember sitting in one of the clinic rooms at BC Children’s, and the nurse came in and said, ‘You have kidney failure, and you need a transplant.’ My dad put his hand up immediately to be a donor,” Kaleena says.
Kaleena received her transplant in 2004 with her dad Brent as her donor.
Both Kaleena and Jordan went back to regular life after their transplants, as best as they could, but they knew they would always be different from their peers. When they each had an opportunity to attend summer camp for transplant kids, now sponsored by the Children’s Organ Transplant Society and Kidney Foundation of Canada, BC & Yukon Branch, they didn’t hesitate.
Kaleena and her friends at camp
For one week during that summer, when they were 15 or 16 years old, Kaleena and Jordan crossed paths at Camp Zajac, where the camp was located at the time.
“Camp helps you feel like you are not alone,” explains Kaleena. “It’s a very safe place to be with all the medical stuff we deal with. At medicine time, it was all organized and everyone was taking meds. You could just be a kid.”
They each made lifelong friends at camp, and though there were a few ‘love connections,’ that didn’t include Kaleena and Jordan. The two went their separate ways.
When Jordan was in his early 20s, he set a goal to travel around the world, visiting as many countries as possible. For a few years, he spent all his money and time globetrotting, eventually hitting about 20 countries. But as he approached the 25th anniversary with his gifted heart, he had a change of heart.
“I just had a moment where I realized I couldn’t do it anymore. I was missing out on a lot of my family milestones, like my brother and sister growing up, and a lot of important events,” Jordan shares. “I came back to Vancouver and started working as a marketing manager for an insurance company.”
Then COVID-19 hit. Jordan’s company downsized, and he decided to move to Kelowna.
Meanwhile, Kaleena had moved to Calgary. Her personal medical journey led her to a career as a pharmacy technician. She loved her job and had a great life. But in 2020, she found out her kidney function was deteriorating and was down to 12%. Three months later, it had worsened, and she ended up on dialysis.
“I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t go anywhere. I couldn’t work. I was hooked up to that peritoneal dialysis machine for about 13 or 14 hours every night, and another couple of hours during the day. That was my whole life,” emphasizes Kaleena.
For two and a half years, Kaleena waited for her third chance at life. She eventually got her transplant March 2023 and then moved back to B.C. eight months later, settling in Vernon.
After reconnecting through the dating app earlier this year, the pair chatted for a while and eventually met up in person. Then they just kept spending time together, connecting on the many things they have in common, aside from being transplant recipients.
Jordan observes, “We like old music, and we are old souls! We have an affinity for Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, all those artists. We both love dogs. We both would rather stay in than go out.”
Kaleena jumps in, “We are on the same level, and we just know what the other person is thinking.”
The two of them have also had similar experiences in previous relationships.
“I invited a now-ex-girlfriend to go with me to a talk I was doing at BC Children’s Hospital about the importance of organ transplants, but the entire time, she complained about how inconvenient it was,” Jordan comments. “She also didn’t want to be part of any anniversary celebrations for my transplant, saying it was ‘before her time.’ It was rough.”
Kaleena shares, “I had one person say, in a text message, that it’s hard for them to ‘fall for someone’ in my ‘situation.’ What am I supposed to say? People see my transplant as a hindrance, but I have never seen it like that.”
The couple recently celebrated Jordan’s 28th heartiversary together with Kaleena’s family. Both are full of gratitude for their donors — their two deceased donors and Kaleena’s dad — who have led them to this point in their lives, together.
“In what world would we have met otherwise?” wonders Kaleena. “Walking down the street, no one knows Jordan is a heart transplant recipient. Same with me. No one would know I am a two-time kidney recipient.” Jordan adds, “If it wasn’t for camp, we would have never known each other existed. It’s the power of transplant and community.”