In late 2020, a time when most of the world was focused on the
fear of COVID, Evelyn read a Facebook post about the
possibility of saving a life. An acquaintance shared a post by
her FB friend, whose sister needed a kidney transplant. Evelyn
had retired the year before after a long career as a nurse and
clinical social worker. She was chagrined that it had never
occurred to her that she could be an organ donor. Evelyn
remembers thinking, “Shoot, why didn’t I consider that when I
was younger and eligible to do such a thing?” She was 70 at the
time.
In the almost fifty years of Evelyn’s career as an RN, the science
of organ and tissue transplant had advanced dramatically.
Kidneys, heart, lungs, liver, and pancreas can now be
successfully transplanted, as can bone, corneas, and skin. Most
of those procedures represent the generous gift of a deceased
person and their families, but since a person needs only one
healthy kidney, and liver tissue will regenerate after donation,
living donation of those organs is not just possible, but safe,
with a high success rate.
Evelyn assumed that a living donor also meant a young one, but
curiosity prompted her to follow the link in the Facebook post,
which led to the Legacy/Good Samaritan organ donor program,
where Faith (the subject of the post) was receiving her care.
What happened next, Evelyn refers to as her “amazing
journey.”
A member of the transplant program contacted her
immediately, thanked her for her inquiry, and explained that
while certain chronic conditions can make a person ineligible to
donate, age itself is not an obstacle. More important are the
potential donor’s health, health history, and genuine interest in
donation.
Soon Evelyn was getting blood drawn, urine tested, heart and
kidney function studies done. She met with the hospital’s
Donor Coordinator to give a detailed medical and social history.
The coordinator asked what she knew about organ donation, if
she knew people who had donated or received organs, whether
she would have a caregiver to help after surgery, and if she was
still interested in donating. Evelyn agreed to a full day of more
complex testing: ultrasounds, scans, EKG, MRI, more blood
tests, and a meeting with the transplant nephrologist.
“What really impressed me was that the focus of all the
meetings, as well as much of the lab work and imaging studies,
was not on getting a kidney for a person who desperately
needed one, but on making sure that my needs as a potential
donor were met.The transplant staff were very vigilant on my
behalf, and I was impressed with their concern for me.” They
also reached out to Evelyn’s husband Tom, who was
encouraged to ask questions and express any concerns.
Evelyn also learned about the paired matching donor
processes: if Evelyn was not a match for her intended
recipient, she could donate to someone for whom she was a
match, while her intended recipient would receive a kidney
from another donor who was a match. (An episode of the
public radio program Hidden Brain contains a discussion about
“chain” kidney donation; it can be found at
https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/the-match/.)
A few months passed. It was summer of 2021 when Evelyn
received the call. The hospital coordinator told her that she was
eligible to donate, and they had found her perfect match: Faith,
the person whose need for a kidney had started Evelyn’s
“amazing journey” At that point, Faith had been on dialysis for
some time to manage her end-stage renal failure.
The date was set for Monday, September 20, 2021. Days before
Evelyn was to check in to the hospital, she was notified that the
surgery was postponed due to the COVID Delta surge. “I was so
disappointed. I could only imagine how Faith felt.” Surgery was
rescheduled for November 8th at 7:00 A.M.
As Evelyn lay in the pre-operative waiting area, everyone who
walked through the door, including the hospital chaplain,
thanked her. “I felt privileged to be able to donate, and yet they
were thanking me. It felt a bit odd,” Evelyn says. “If you talk to
other donors, this is not an uncommon feeling.” The last thing
she remembers before losing consciousness was giggling. “I’m
what they call, ‘drug naïve’ and I was tripping out a bit”.
In the recovery room, Evelyn remembers seeing a bed go by with a
patient in it who resembled the photo of Faith in the Facebook
post which had started her journey. When she overheard a staff
person say “Faith,” she knew her partner in this endeavor was
okay. It wasn’t until several months after the surgery that the two
actually met. It was early spring of 2022, when she got an email
from Faith, saying that she was adjusting to her new life and
new body, and would welcome contact with Evelyn. “I was on
the phone immediately. We talked for a good half hour,” says
Evelyn. “It was perfect.”
Since then, the two have exchanged visits, some of them with
Tom. “It’s not just about the amazing series of events that
brought us together initially,” Evelyn states. “Faith is doing well,
we have interests in common, we’ve become friends, and we’re
moving forward with our lives.”
Evelyn has reflected often on her experience as an organ donor.
She credits her parents, “both very giving people,” for instilling
a sense of responsibility towards others, stressing that
obligation was even more important when a person has been
fortunate in life. “I’ve been given so much,” says Evelyn, “As a
nurse and social worker, I helped a lot of people move forward,
but this was like rescuing a person at risk of drowning, while I’m
standing safe on the shore. With so little risk to myself, I could
give a person their life back.”