Learning Center Dedicated To The Memory Of Newtown Woman

By Jan Howard

A beloved friend and co-worker has been remembered by members of Danbury Hospital’s Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine through the dedication last week of The Laboratory Learning Center.

Jamie Pimpinello, a resident of Newtown who died in 1995 at the age of 39, was remembered by relatives, friends, and colleagues August 16 as a loving, giving person who had indomitable courage and motivation. The daughter of Josephine and James Pimpinello, she graduated with honors from Newtown High School.

Ms Pimpinello was a medical technologist in the hospital’s laboratory on the second floor for 17 years.

She liked to write poetry, and one of her poems was read during the dedication ceremony.

Ms Pimpinello was 12 years old when on August 27, 1968, she received the first live donor transplant in Connecticut from her mother at Yale-New Haven Hospital. The kidney transplant followed three months of treatment for the disease glomerulo nephritis. She had first entered Danbury Hospital in May, when it was evident, despite aggressive treatment, that she would need a transplant.

At the time of the operation, an area newspaper quoted James Pimpinello as saying, “Jamie’s a fighter. She’s never given up her willingness to pull through this.”

“We are honored beyond belief that they did this,” Mrs Pimpinello said following the dedication ceremony. She voiced great praise for the medical professionals who treated her daughter through the years, some of whom, such as Dr Nelson Gelfman, had treated her since childhood.

Ms Pimpinello continued to meet her health problems with courage in the years following that first transplant. In spite of undergoing three additional kidney transplants in a Boston hospital, other operations and health problems, and numerous hospital stays through the 27 years following her first transplant, Ms Pimpinello graduated from Western Connecticut State University and completed an internship at the hospital. She set up the teaching program there, and at the time of her death was director of the med tech intern program.

“She went through college living on dialysis,” Mrs Pimpinello said.

Mrs Pimpinello said that when her daughter first became ill, no one knew what she had. “They thought she had a blood disease.” She credits Dr Stanley Saperstein, of Danbury Hospital’s Nephrology Department, with saving her daughter’s life.

Speakers at the dedication ceremony included Patricia Palmer, technical specialist; Dr Gelfman, director emeritus, Nelson Gelfman Dialysis Unit; Jim Johnson, LIS project manager; and the Reverend Paul Beavers, director of pastoral care at the hospital. A reception followed in the pathology conference room.

Dr Gelfman said it was very appropriate that the learning center be named for Ms Pimpinello. He described her as possessing “indomitable” courage and motivation. “This unit is aptly named for her,” he said.

He first met her in 1972 when she was showing symptoms of organ rejection. “Jamie’s first transplant did not go smoothly,” he said. The kidney was salvaged, he noted, “at a great cost to Jamie” because of large doses of steroids.

Dialysis “was torture for her,” Dr Gelfman said.

While Ms Pimpinello was terribly afraid of transplants, in 1974 it was obvious she would need a second kidney, he said. This transplant went well until she was 25, when it failed, and by December 1982 Ms Pimpinello underwent her third transplant, while continuing to be a full time employee at the hospital. In 1987, she was back on dialysis. In 1989, she had an unprecedented fourth transplant.

Despite bone and joint problems, Dr Gelfman said Ms Pimpinello took up windsurfing and worked out. She had a knee replacement, but her knees continued to swell. During a knee operation, her fatal lymphoma was discovered and following testing, it was also found in her liver. She continued working until a short time before her death.

“Jamie was family,” Mr Johnson said. “She had a big heart. Here was a person with many problems and issues. I still can’t windsurf. How did she do it?

He noted his duel role in Ms Pimpinello’s life. “I was Jamie’s direct supervisor when she was a tech” and was often involved in her care during her hospital stays.

“She showed dedication, and heart,” Mr Johnson said. “It was a pleasure to work with her.”

She would be “missed forever, forgotten never,” he said in closing.

Rev Beavers called upon the many attendees at the dedication to be grateful for the love they shared with Ms Pimpinello. He said the Learning Center would celebrate her life and the love and compassion she left on the hearts and minds of those who knew her.

“Many have been truly loved and blessed through their relationship with her,” he said.

 Mrs Pimpinello said her daughter loved teaching and helping people. “She took students to her condo to help them study. She was a very giving person.”

 “There were so many people who helped us through the years,” Mrs Pimpinello said, adding that local residents and civic groups organized a fundraising effort on her daughter’s behalf.

“I think people who did all this fundraising need to know their money wasn’t in vain,” she said. “I think her life was something special.”

“She went through a lot, but she did a lot,” Mrs Pimpinello said. “We received a basket full of letters after she died.”