A year ago, the spirit of Christmas grabbed Robi Bumpus. Before the Thanksgiving Day dishes were washed, she was excited, thinking about decorating the tree and celebrating her favorite holiday with family and friends.

This year things are different.

For the last five weeks, the 26-year-old mother has been fighting for her life at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Bumpus would love to be home getting ready for Christmas with her 5-year-old son, Steven Matthew Smith, and her fiancee, Steven Smith. But it will take a heart transplant before she can return to the family’s log cabin in rural Chester.

The heart transplant could come any minute, any day, or any week. Hopes soared Friday when the family learned there was a 50-50 chance Bumpus would get a heart. But the tissue didn’t match. She and her family continue to wait.

“It’s quite a struggle,” said Steven Smith. “It’s a battle of just having willpower enough to hang in there for the wait. She is staying stable.”

While Bumpus battles to grow strong for the transplant, many of her close friends in the Lincoln area can’t believe how quickly and to what extent this young, healthy and active woman’s life has changed. “You just never know. I pray for her every day,” said Wendy Porter of Enfield, a close friend.

In early October, Smith said, his fiancee came down with a cold or the flu. “It just wouldn’t go away,” he said. After some time, he said, she went to the hospital in Lincoln, then to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. Doctors at EMMC said Bumpus had a rare virus that had weakened her heart. Smith said a balloon pump was used to keep her heart going. Then she developed blood clots.

“Right now, she is on medicine to keep her heart going. It’s the only way she can live. The only way she can come out of the hospital is with a heart transplant,” said Smith, fighting back tears. He came home from Boston this weekend to attend a public supper held by friends to help raise money for the couple.

The 29-year-old man said the past five weeks had been like a ride on a roller coaster. “One day she feels good. The next day she is sick or depressed. It’s been really hard. I try not break down and cry in front of her. I try to be strong for her,” Smith said.

Last week, Bumpus was moved from the intensive care unit to a private room. At one point, Smith said, Bumpus was No. 1 on the list to get a heart. Although she is no longer No. 1, Smith said she is still near the top.

Lori Tash of Hodgdon said her sister could sit up in bed for about one hour a day, and could stand, but only for a few minutes.

Tash, a wife and mother of two children, would like to be home with her family but finds it hard to tear herself away from her sister. “I want to spend every second of every minute that I have with her and treasure it because we don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring,” Tash said.

Bumpus, who for the past eight years worked as a waitress and cook at the Timberhouse Restaurant in Lincoln, misses her son. Smith’s father and stepmother, June and Owen Smith of Chester, take care of young Steven, and take him to Boston at least every other weekend.

Smith recalled how upset Bumpus got one day as she lay in her hospital bed looking out the window watching it snow. “Christmas is her favorite time of the year,” he said. He added the family will have a big Christmas celebration as soon as his fiancee returns home, no matter when it is.

The young man said his fiancee, who loves to drink water, is having a hard time coping with having only a limited amount of fluids a day.

When her family and friends ask Bumpus, who is an organ donor, whether there is something they can get her, her reply is, “A heart or pray for me.”

“She wants people to be aware of how much organ donors are needed and not just in her case,” said Tash. “She is strong enough now for a transplant,” Tash said.

Smith has taken time off from his job so he can be with Bumpus. Smith and Tash take turns spending the night with her at the hospital.

Concerned about the financial strain on the family, close friends have held fund-raisers. Donation cans have been placed in some area stores. People who want to help the family may make a donation in care of Robert Bumpus, Robi’s father, to account No. 6240 at Peoples Heritage Bank in Lincoln.