I have to say, that every
now and then a true Angel appears. That is what Zully Broussard is, an
Angel. She decided to give a total stranger one of her Kidney’s and
this sparked a chain reaction for six other patients to receive
Kidney’s. It took place at California Pacific Medical Center in San
Francisco, with the support staff of 40 to do these surgeries on 12
people. The patients who received these donor Kidneys were on the
deceased donor lists. There were three parents and child pairs, one
sibling pair and one brother and sister-in-law pair. Thanks to a
computer programmer named David Jacobs who was on the deceased donor
list years ago who received a Kidney from a living donor. It is much
easier and faster for doctors and their staff to coordinate multiple
Kidney transplants. David Jacobs created a Match Grid that
genetically matches donor pairs or chains quickly. David Jacobs said
“When we did a five-way swap a few years ago, which was one of the
largest, it took about three to four months. We did this in about
three weeks”. He is another Angel, think of all the lives is
program saved.
When I was sixteen years
old I got my driver’s license. Back then on your license you
received a card specify that you wanted to be an organ donor. You
would attach to your license. Back then I was thinking if something
would happen to me, at least I would help save someone’s life.
Little did I know 20 years later I would be diagnosed with Kidney
failure and put on the deceased donors list? I was on Dialysis for 5
years. Once I was on Dialysis I felt better but being on it for so
long it took a toll on my body. The deceased donor list is a long
list and the waiting is agonizing. It doesn’t really matter where
you are on the list if a match comes up. The match goes to the
sickest person. In my case, I was the sickest person so I received
the Kidney from the deceased donors list. It will be 8 years October
28, 2015, one day after my birthday. Now I celebrate the day I was
born and the day I was reborn.
It doesn’t have to be
this way if more people like Zully Broussard of Fair Oaks California
would give this generous gift of life. There are currently 123,175
people waiting for lifesaving organ transplants in the U.S. of these,
101,170 await kidney transplants according to the Organ Donation and
Transplantation Statistic as of September 8, 2014. I’m a firm
believer we are all connected, no matter what race we are. God Bless
you Zully Broussard.
LM
