"This is my life, this is my passion" - Jessica Carmel

     From a very young age, Jessica learned what the fight for life and the will to live meant. Growing up in the northern suburbs of Chicago,  she attended school as any normal child did. She made friends and studied diligently. Jessica has always known what it was like to be a patient with a heart problem and then at the age of sixteen, a transplant patient. Jessica received her heart transplant in the fall of 1999.

     Since receiving her heart, she applied and graduated from DePaul University with a degree in business management and entrepreneurship. Her mom, an avid “Heart Mom”, her sister Amy and family have been an amazing support system for Jessica. She has accomplished so much in her young life. She is an advocate for the congenital heart disease community and transplant community.

     She has spoken multiple times for and have done media interviews for some of the following; Children’s Organ Transplant Association, Give of Hope, GiveForward, and Children’s Heart Foundation. She has written for several online transplant communities one in particular the National Kidney Foundation when she was going through the process of receiving her second organ transplant, a kidney, in 2009.

     As a pioneer of CHD and transplant advocacy she is also firmly rooted in the social network of CHD patients, parents and families and heart and kidney patients and families. Jessica’s passion for life and her future make her an amazing and powerful partner. Jessica will do everything to promote her book because its success means the growing awareness of CHD and transplant communities.

     Jessica is currently enrolled back at DePaul University's Graduate Program studying Health Communications.