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Organ donors, recipients urge people to donate
YOUNGSTOWN
One came to tell her story about the pancreas transplant that gave her life and the two young men who gave up their plane tickets so she could make it to the hospital in time for the operation.
Another talked about the loss of her stillborn daughter, so close to life that her parents were able to donate her heart valves so someone else might live, and how telling the story helps them heal.
The young women, Candace Brown of Girard and Deanna Slifka of Liberty, were among some 50 organ-donor and transplant recipients at St. Elizabeth Health Center’s Donate Life Celebration on Friday.
Candace, 30, was 11 when she was diagnosed with diabetes. At 18 she began to lose feeling in her extremities and lost all kidney function at 28.
She was put on the transplant list in January 2010, and the waiting began. Her bags were packed and ready to go, but the first three times she got the call, it didn’t work out.
“The disappointment was heartbreaking,” she said.
However, the fourth call was a go for a transplant in Minneapolis, but even then, except for two generous young men, employees of SenSource of Youngstown, she most likely would not have made it to the hospital in time.
When Candace and her mother got to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport to catch a plane from Detroit that was going to Minneapolis, the flight from Detroit was delayed several times because of tornadoes and finally canceled. The only other flight going from Cleveland to Minneapolis was full.
First, Candace’s mother explained the urgency of the situation to airline personnel, but could not get the two seats needed. Finally, her mother began asking people, who had not yet boarded, if they would give up their tickets so Candace could get to her transplant operation on time.
They had no success until they met the SenSource employees, Dan Aluise of Poland and Greg Blair of Salem, who were on their way to Minneapolis to make a sales presentation the next morning.
Aluise, who attended the Donate Life Celebration, said he quickly checked with his home office, which immediately gave him the go-ahead to give their tickets to Candace and her mother.
Aluise said it is amazing to have had a small part in Brown’s transplant journey.
Brown, whose transplant was June 19, 2012, was in the hospital two months after the operation, and takes 60 pills a day to keep her body from rejecting the new pancreas.
“I thank God and the 21-year-old man [whose pancreas she received] everyday for life,” but she said “the process toward recovery is grueling.”
Deanna and Joseph Slifka’s experience was the other side of the transplant story.
When Deanna, 28, arrived at St. Elizabeth’s to deliver Sophia, their second child, she had no concerns because she had felt the baby move when she woke up. But, when the nurses hooked up the fetal monitor there was no heartbeat.
After attempts to save Sophia failed, a nurse placed the baby in Deanna’s arms.
“Sophia was warm and her skin tone was pink, but she was stiff and was not breathing,” Deanna told the rapt and tearful audience at the Donate Life Celebration.
A few hours later, as she cradled her baby, a woman from Lifebanc came to talk about donating Sophia’s heart valves.
“The woman spoke with such compassion and gentleness. We had two hours to make a decision. I turned to my husband and said ‘We have to do this.’”
“So now, I live a life where I carry two children in my arms — Isabella, 3, and Eliana, 6 months — and one only in my heart, Sophia, who would have been 2 on May 29,” she said.
Deanna said Sophia’s donation has given her and her husband hope and healing and given Sophia’s life a purpose.
“She challenged us to be strong and compassionate people and to open our hearts and remember our job is to love one another and give of ourselves even when we are broken,” Deanna said.
Other speakers at the Donate Life Celebration, which honored and recognized organ donors and recipients, were Dr. Nicholas Kreatsoulos, senior vice president and chief medical officer for Humility of Mary Health Partners; Gordon Bowen, Lifebanc chief executive officer; and a representative of the Cleveland Eye Bank. Awards were presented by Mariann Pacak, director of the heart and vascular service at the hospital.