By Jeff Stitt
MIDDLETOWN TOWNSHIP, N.J. — Over the summer, a New Jersey teacher donated his kidney to a fellow educator. Both teachers recovered in time to be in the classroom for the first day of school. They’re hoping their students take away a life lesson from their story.
Lauren Crupi, who teaches sixth-grade language arts at Saint Leo the Great School is elated to be in front of her class. Check out the full story from KCRA News 3.
By Elise Takahama
It had been less than two weeks since giving birth when a coronary artery in Adriana Rodriguez’s heart burst.
The sudden tear interrupted an early December breakfast with her mother in Bellingham, and within minutes her chest started tightening. A wave of nausea weakened her body. She wanted to curl up into a ball. Read the full story in The Seattle Times.
By Matthew Fahr
It is not often that responding to an email leads to saving someone’s life, but that is what happened to Clarkston school district teacher Jessica Sorensen.
She teaches grades three, four, and five in Clarkston’s virtual program and Dennis Klenow teaches third grade at Independence Elementary; the two have been friends for over 20 years. They knew each other’s kids and had them in their classrooms and taught classes side by side for over a decade. Read the full story in The Oakland Press.
By Jane Bahk
All eyes were on 10-year-old Mason Patel. Nothing would start until he uttered those time-honored words.
“Play ball!” Mason called into the microphone, and the crowd erupted with cheers.
As this year’s Play Ball Kid, Mason represented organ donor recipients at the San Francisco Giants’ 24th Annual Organ Donor Awareness Day on Aug. 30, also known as Donate Life Day. Read the full story from Stanford Medicine Children’s Health.
By Denise Mann
MONDAY, Aug. 28, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Valance Sams Sr. believes that he has experienced “a miracle.”
Sams, now 46, underwent a triple organ transplant in the spring of 2023, making him one of fewer than 50 people in the United States to ever receive three new organs via transplantation. Read the full story in U.S. News & World Report.
By Alice Berry
R.J. Redstrom didn’t have much time left.
On a Monday in August 2020, still early in the pandemic, he noticed he had a cough. The next morning, he woke up feeling even worse – a rarity for Redstrom, whose intense fitness regimen usually helped prevent him from getting sick. He took a COVID test, and days later the results confirmed his fear: He had come down with the virus.
A week later, he couldn’t breathe.
The sudden and serious sickness was a new experience for Redstrom, who had always thought of himself as a healthy person. Read the full story in UVAToday.
By Julienne Jenkins
Nevaeh Quinn of Winnemucca, Nevada, got the thrill of a lifetime when she received the news that a generous, anonymous donor was gifting her tickets to see Taylor Swift at the Eras Tour concert. A social worker at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, Gianna Nasrah, LCSW, wanted to do something special for her.
Nevaeh is an amazing 14-year-old girl that has spent a lot of her life in medical settings,” Nasrah said. “She has recently been in and out of the hospital often, and I think my hope is that this gives her a sense of normalcy and rejuvenates her hope for the future.” Read the full story from Stanford Medicine Children’s Health.
By John Hackley
At 55, Buford area resident Jeff Hadley is in need of a kidney transplant from a genetic condition known as polycystic kidney disease that he was diagnosed with in his mid to late twenties.
Although he has been required to undergo dialysis treatments five days a week for the past year and half, he still works full-time at Lowe’s in Hillsboro. Read the full story in The Times-Gazette.
By Camille Bautista-Fryer
On a trip in March 2023, Chad and Ethan Glaser soaked in the breathtaking views, marveling at the majestic, snow-capped peaks of the French Alps before gliding side by side down the powdered slopes. As Chad soared down the alpine landscape in Chamonix, France, glancing at his 22-year-old son, Ethan, he felt immense gratitude.
It was exactly this kind of moment that Chad hoped he and Ethan could share when he donated a portion of his liver to Ethan, who at three months old was diagnosed with biliary atresia, a rare liver disease of the bile ducts that affects newborn infants. This trip to Chamonix marked the 20th anniversary of the liver donation. Read the full story in Health Matters.
To the Donor Family:
We’ve not met so this letter from a total stranger may surprise you. I’m writing as a recent liver transplant recipient from last October.
I was given very little information about my donor except what was jotted down unemotionally on a doctor’s note in my medical file.
Read the full article in Times of San Diego.