Jan’s Story
How much of an impact can one person have on the lives of others? To have known Jan means you know the answer to that question.
Jan Thompson was born with cystic fibrosis in 1969 in Rushville, Illinois. She grew up playing sports as a stand out athlete and graduated from Rushville High School in the class of 1987. She went on to graduate from Illinois State University, and a few years later began a long career with Enterprise Holdings. Jan continued to play sports after college, competing on numerous slow and fast pitch softball teams for over 30 years in Illinois, Tennessee, and Missouri. Throughout those years, her health had ups and downs, but Jan encountered every setback with humor, positivity, and toughness.
She was blessed to receive a double lung transplant in April of 2013, after her health had drastically declined the year before. Jan took this “new birthday” as a blessing and ran with it. She began dating her partner Danielle Doerfler shortly after her transplant, and together, with their beloved dogs Scout, Izzie, and Eeyore, they resided in St. Louis, Missouri. During the next few years, Jan hiked the Grand Canyon from Rim to Rim for the CF Foundation, jumped out of planes, rode in a hot air balloon, and paraglided over rural Missouri to name a few adventures. However, in February of 2019, Jan was diagnosed with lung rejection. She faced this challenge with the same frame of mind and fought hard, trying numerous anti-rejection medicines and procedures. Unfortunately, none of them worked, and Jan was relisted for a second double lung transplant in August of 2019. Danielle and Jan waited for “the call” but it didn’t come in time for Jan. She faced a liver failure diagnosis in January of 2020 that caused her to be removed from the transplant list. Jan and Danielle were able to go home and share the next three months there visiting with Jan’s family and friends surrounded by their three “pups.”
Jan passed away on April 11th, 2020. Danielle started the foundation as a way to honor Jan and Jeffrey’s legacy and to continue to advocate and fundraise for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
