There is no love that can compare to a mother’s love she has for her children. All the little things a mother may do for a child that may seem mundane at the time are truly reflective by the pedestal moms are placed on by their young. Moms always seemed to make things better. Whether it is tending to a bruise, helping with homework or just giving a hug or a little praise at the right time, she always makes it work. Gosh, I was 60 years old and when I was leaving the house my mom said, “Button up, its cold out there.” I said, “Okay, Mom” and thought how unbelievably caring can a mother be.

So once a year, in the beautiful month of May, we take a day to honor those women who mean or meant so much to us. To take this insignificant amount of time out to honor these wonderful women is the least we can do. So on May 13^th , we at TSI would like to wish all you women out there with your nurturing ways, whether you are a mother or not, a Happy Mother’s Day. We love you all.

Frank Bodino
President

After all the necessary training, Zach was sent overseas to the Korengal Valley, in the Kunar Province in Afghanistan. Bordering Pakistan and China, in 2007 the Kunar Province was a mix of terrorist cells, including Al-Qaida, all vying for control. This made it site of some of the heaviest fighting in the Afghan War. Twelve months into his deployment and only a few weeks from his return home, Zach was on patrol when his platoon came under fire from enemy insurgents.

During the attack, one of Zach’s friends had his leg blown off by a rocket propelled grenade and Zach crawled out into an unprotected area, while being fired upon, to bring his friend to safety. While pulling the wounded soldier back behind cover, unbeknownst to him, Zach was shot. He called for a military evacuation helicopter, while stopping the bleeding with a tourniquet and starting an IV on his wounded comrade. Another soldier pointed out blood on Zach’s pant leg and asked him if it was his. Zach said, “I didn’t feel anything until then. But as soon as I saw it, I felt the pain and it was excruciating.” He called the medical evacuation helicopter again and told them to bring a replacement medic. About ten minutes later, the helicopter arrived and both he and his friend were taken for further medical treatment.

Zach had been shot in the upper hamstring of his left leg. The bullet had ricocheted off the ground, entered his leg and broke off a fragment of his femur. The entry wound was about the size of a nickel and the exit wound was the size of an apple. Had he been hit with the full bullet, which was a 7.62 from either an AK-47 or a Dragunov sniper rifle, his entire femur would have been shattered.

Zach was moved to a military hospital in Frankfort, Germany. While there, he received a bone allograft to fill the void left in his femur and a skin graft to cover the exit wound (the entrance wound was stitched shut), as well as donated blood.

After five months in Frankfort, Zach returned to Fort Hood (where he was initially trained) and was honorably discharged. “I felt sad about the discharge because I wasn’t ready, and I like to finish things I start…I was mostly concerned for my men,” Zach said.

Today his leg has not affected his active lifestyle in Colorado where he enjoys skiing, hiking and photography. In fact, the only problem Zach has with his leg is soreness when it is cold. Inspired by his experience with life-saving, donated human tissue, after returning home Zach first got a job with the Rocky Mountain Lion’s Eye Bank, recovering eyes from deceased donors. Now he works for AlloSource, a non-profit tissue bank, where he processes the gift of life from deceased tissue donors – the same type of tissue that saved his leg years ago. He is also studying radiology and looks forward to continuing to impact lives in a positive way.

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After spending an evening in Baton Rouge, the following Sunday morning we met Lori Steele, the LOPA volunteer coordinator in that area and proceeded to do another training seminar. Once again Lori had everything set for an efficient presentation.

Overjoyed as both sessions were successfully concluded, Jack and I drove back to Metairie; slept over and departed for New Jersey the following Monday morning.

It takes a lot of work and effort to put these seminars together by the LOPA volunteer workers aforementioned above and we truly appreciate all they do. However in so many instances we forget to mention people behind the scenes. The logistics involved in all this travel including hotels, flights and coordination of times were put together by LOPA’s Executive Assistant, Frannie Trapani. Frannie is a joy to work with. She handles any problems that may occur with a smile and is the brunt of Jack’s, Steve’s and my teasing. Originally a native of New York, we constantly rib her about her Southern accent. Its funny she has a New York accent with a couple of Southern phrases thrown in here or there. It’s always a joy going to Louisiana and Frannie makes it easy as well.

When we listen and critique the volunteer stories which are part of the training program, every once in awhile there’s a story that really affects you. While we were in Metairie, a volunteer named Toni Wild told such a story. She wrote a version of it for me and I thought I’d share it with you.

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Both are from different occupational backgrounds who melded together like peanut butter and jelly. Shirley was a high school teacher at Byrnes High School and coached woman’s volleyball and basketball prior to coming to LifePoint. Her one on one skills are more than evident when you see her work with her volunteers, while her organizational skills are also excellent. By the way to say she’s a leader is an understatement.

If you live in South Carolina there’s a chance you might have seen Mark on local TV telling you if it was going to rain tomorrow. Mark was a TV weatherman until his close friend passed away waiting for a transplant. Mark then decided he had to do something so others wouldn’t die for the reason that there wasn’t an organ available. He brought his strong communication skills to LifePoint and then teamed up with Shirley to aid volunteers in educating the public on the importance of organ, eye and tissue donation.

Did you ever meet someone that made you feel you’ve known them for years even though you just met them? That’s how both Mark and Shirley made us feel since the first time we met them years ago. Since that time we’ve seen their volunteer base grow due to their hard work and diligence.

It was great helping them train their volunteers again but it was even better just seeing them again. Thanks guys for all you do.

The sorority also invited another guest speaker. Ryan Miller, a fellow student at the university received a heart transplant approximately one and a half years ago. He told the students how active in sports he had been before a virus attacked his heart and how he ended up with cardiomyopathy and in need of a heart transplant. He was very gracious to his donor and related to the students how “normal” he is right now. Ryan really related to his peers and it was an honor to meet such a bright young man.

I’d personally like to thank Jessica Porter and the rest of her fundraising and philanthropy committee: Kathy Sosa, Nicole Jacobs, Celisse del Valle, Laura Dobiszewski, Randi Freedman, Kate Osborn, Julie Maines, Kate Quinones, Jacqueline Silverstone and Lauren Skupien. We would also like to thank Alyssa Ercan for her technical assistance.

We would like to compliment Erica DiFrancisco, President of Phi Sigma Sigma for her leadership of such a wonderful group of young women and like to thank them for their dedication to organ, eye and tissue donation. They did a great job!!!!

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Nicholas D. Kristof/The New York Times Edna Adan in front of the maternity hospital she founded and runs, with the help of American supporters, in Hargeisa, Somaliland.

In a few days Americans will celebrate Mother’s Day with roses, chocolates and fine dinners, inducing warm and fuzzy feelings all around. But, in addition, I’ll bet helping mothers less fortunate would also render any mom giddy.

That’s what some Americans have decided to do: commemorate motherhood by saving the lives of mothers halfway around the world — such as in this impoverished nook of Somaliland in the horn of Africa. Beyond celebrating moms with fleeting flowers, they are helping an extraordinary Somali woman, Edna Adan, run a maternity hospital here to make childbirth safer.

We in journalism often focus on villains, but Edna is one of my heroes. She’s a tireless 73-year-old whose passion is to save her countrywomen’s lives, get them access to family planning and end female genital mutilation.

Somaliland is a breakaway republic carved from Somalia but recognized by no outside country. It has only two OB-GYNs, and a woman here has perhaps a 1-in-10 lifetime risk of dying in childbirth. Just about the most dangerous thing a Somali woman can do is become pregnant, but Edna — with her American supporters — is changing that. They provide a lovely example of how Mother’s Day can be about something richer than the finest chocolate, and more lasting.

One of the first Somali women in this region to get a proper education and study in the West, Edna became a nurse-midwife and served in a senior post in the United Nations. For a time, she was foreign minister of Somaliland.

But Edna’s life dream was to open a maternity hospital. After she retired from the United Nations in 1997, she sold her Mercedes and took her entire life savings of $300,000 to build a maternity hospital on land that had been the town dump.

When the hospital was almost complete, her money ran out. But then an article appeared in The New York Times in 1999 about Edna and her flickering dream, and a few readers in Connecticut and Minnesota reached out to help. One of them, Anne Gilhuly, a retired teacher, told me that she and her friends leaped at the thought that they could use spare cash to keep women alive.

The Americans founded a tax-deductible charity, the Friends of Edna Maternity Hospital (www.EdnaHospital.org), and a remarkable partnership was born that allowed the hospital to be completed and flourish. “If it weren’t for ‘Friends,’ we would never have built this hospital,” Edna said.

What they have wrought is stunning. On a continent where hospitals are often dilapidated and depressing, Edna’s is modern, sterile and hums with efficiency. She lives in an apartment above the hospital so that she is available 24/7, and she accepts no salary. She also donates her U.N. pension each month to help pay hospital expenses.

So far, the hospital says it has delivered about 10,000 babies, some of them after the woman was rushed to the hospital gate in a wheelbarrow. Edna has also used her hospital to train Somali midwives to serve in remote areas. Training a midwife at Edna’s hospital costs $215 a month for 18 months — and then that midwife will save mothers and babies for many years.

If there’s ever a time when the needless deaths of women in childbirth — one every 90 seconds or so somewhere in the world, according to the United Nations — should be on our radar screen, it’s at Mother’s Day. And we know how to save those lives.

CARE says that $10 pays for food for three days at a hospital for an expectant mother. When food is provided, a woman is more likely to deliver at a hospital. Or with $190, CARE can buy a bicycle rickshaw ambulance to rush a woman in labor to a hospital.

Save the Children runs a midwife training program in Afghanistan (where women are 200 times more likely to die in childbirth than from a bullet or bomb, the group says) and points out that $80 will pay for a midwifery kit for new graduates. And for $450, the Fistula Foundation can repair a woman suffering from an obstetric fistula, a devastating childbirth injury that leaves her leaking wastes.

In a column a year ago, I suggested that we move the apostrophe so as to celebrate not so much Mother’s Day — honoring a single mother — but Mothers’ Day, to help save mothers’ lives around the world as well.

Eva Hausman, a retired social studies teacher in Connecticut, and five other women took up that challenge. They started a Mothers’ Day campaign, which has its own Web site at www.MothersDayMovement.org. They hope that Americans will consecrate the mother in their lives not only with presents but also by helping impoverished women and girls through a particular charity (this year it’s one that works in a Kenyan slum). They’ve found matching funds from a foundation to do that.

To me, that’s a perfect way to honor a mom.

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Submitted By: Jo Pelletier Servings: 8

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The article was written by Dick Teresi and was entitled “What You Lose When You Sign That Donor Card.” It was published in the March 13, 2012 issue of the Wall Street Journal. Basically, the article focused on the validity of the testing that determines brain death. He also stated that the potential donors may still be alive while the “harvesting” of organs is taking place and the donors may be suffering during the procedure. What he failed to communicate is that this testing has been proven to be valid and has been enacted into state law for over forty years. He also denigrated organ donation by the constant usage of the word “harvest” in the retrieval process. We in the transplant community have been fighting the usage of demeaning verbiage for years and he should have been well aware of that fact, if his research was up to date. Personally I think he was using it for sensationalism with no regard for donor families.

This article was accompanied by a photograph of a man who had lines on his nude torso separating areas where different organs are located. He made the picture appear similar to one you would see at a butcher shop depicting a cow and areas where you could find your preferred cut of meat. There are no words to describe just how offensive it is, but they say a picture is worth a thousand words and he used it without any regard to the impact on families, who have made the sacrifice and given the gift of life. This article is also a preamble to his new book, entitled (are you ready for this?), “The Undead: Organ Harvesting, the Ice Water-Test, Beating Heart Cadavers – How Medicine is Blurring the Line Between Life and Death.” If you wish to read it please go to the library and rather than purchase it.

Steve asked me if he could write a response on behalf of TSI refuting the author’s statements. We contacted our lawyer and post-transplant physician for legal and medical advice then responded negatively to the article. We not only proclaimed his fallacies, but also condemned the Wall Street Journal for publishing them. Of course they failed to publish our response.

We then contacted OPO’s, not only locally, but up and down the eastern seaboard to make them aware of the publication. We found that most of them had already known and were reacting as we did. One of the OPO’s also told us that the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations and Donate Life America were also notified. We were thrilled to see all these important members of our transplant community come together under one banner to resolve all the myths and misconceptions that are being spoon fed to the public.

As a community, we must support each other and stand united against antiquated, destructive and false rhetoric.

Frank Bodino
President

These were the thoughts that were occupying my mind as I made the drive from my home in Huntington, Long Island to Wallingford, CT. to conduct a TSI training for the fine folks of Donate Life, Connecticut. I was looking forward to seeing Jennifer Cray, Volunteer Coordinator for the New England Organ Bank, again and being able to put a face to the voice of Kari Mull, Director of Donate Life of CT, who to this point I’d only spoken with by telephone. I also had the pleasure of meeting Allison Mohan the new Chair of Donate Life, Connecticut. Awesome people all.

The training went well, the day was a blast, but when it came time for the attendees to tell their stories I got to meet a most remarkable woman, April Capone. April is the kind of person who makes even the notion of donation a possibility. Read on and met this extraordinary woman and her inspiring story.

In September of 2009 I found myself like any other day sitting at my desk in the East Haven, CT Mayor’s Office. I was working on my computer with my Facebook account open when a new status popped up on my news feed. It was from Carlos Sanchez, one of my residents in the town of roughly 30,000 and one of my many Facebook ‘friends’. I knew Carlos in passing, which is to say if I saw him in town I knew him well enough to say hello. But as mayor of a small city you say hello to everyone; it’s your job. What I saw on the screen that day had nothing to do with my job. There was a post from Carlos that simply said ‘I am in need of a kidney transplant. All of my friends and family have been tested and there is no match. If you are interested in being tested as a donor let me know.’ I saw the status and without skipping a beat I sent him a private message that said something to the effect of ‘Carlos, I’ll get tested. I have two kidneys so what the hell? You can have one!’ Carlos and his family did not take it seriously and two days later, after not hearing back from him I sent another message expressing my honest interest. He simply replied with the contact info for the Yale Transplant Coordinator and a thank you for considering him. I made the call for more information and found that it would be a long process. I planned to get started immediately but an ugly negative opponent in that year’s election cycle got the best of me and my attention was focused on winning reelection. At Christmas time, now starting my second term in office, I ran into Carlos at a town event. I was struck by his condition; he was ashen and unsteady on his feet and it hit me like a ton of bricks that I better do something sooner rather than later.

As I went through the testing process I also spent time getting to know Carlos. Not a day went by that he didn’t say to me ‘Honey, I appreciate you doing this and if you’re not a match I still love you for going this far.’ One day I turned to him and sternly said ‘Stop saying that! You have to believe. It’s GOING to happen.’ I had the benefit of knowing something he didn’t; from the second I saw his status I knew as sure as I knew my own name that I would be his donor. I just plain knew.

Turns out my gut was right. On April 8, 2010 the transplant team at Yale New Haven Hospital, the real heroes in this story, took my left kidney and put it into Carlos Sanchez. Today Carlos and I are healthy, well and as close as any family can be. People often ask how I could give my kidney to a relative stranger. My answer is always the same ‘How could I not?’ I was raised to believe that if you can help someone, you do and you don’t expect accolades for it. We share our story so people can open their minds to live organ donation and shorten the wait for thousands suffering needlessly.

People say Carlos was lucky to find me. The truth is I was lucky to find him and as I always say;

Carlos wasn’t my husband but he was someone’s husband.

Carlos wasn’t my father but he was someone’s father

and Carlos wasn’t my brother….but he is now.

By Steven G. Taibbi And April Capone

After a consult with an oncologist, Elizabeth had an MRI performed and later a biopsy. She was diagnosed with osteosarcoma – a form of bone cancer. Within a few days, she started chemotherapy. At the beginning of the week, Elizabeth was a healthy little girl. By the end of the week, she was a patient diagnosed with aggressive cancer that needed immediate treatment.

Elizabeth got used to the chemo, but nothing could take away the excruciating pain she felt in her arm. Dr. Mayerson broke the tough news that this type of cancer kills bone. Elizabeth would either need to have her arm amputated or she could undergo a transplant of a human allograft bone to give her a chance of keeping her arm and maintaining good mobility. While uncommon to find a bone of the right size for someone as small as Elizabeth, through the efforts of Gift of Hope, AlloSource and the entire tissue donation community, a suitable donor was found.

The surgery was a success and Elizabeth’s pain stopped almost immediately after the procedure. Later, Elizabeth’s family learned that a five-year-old girl had lost her life and it was her bone that was used to repair Elizabeth’s arm. The little girl’s grandmother sent a letter to Elizabeth and told her that the little girl liked to wear skirts, play with Polly Pockets and loved to draw.

The most amazing thing is that Elizabeth’s ability to draw and paint has improved dramatically after receiving her new bone – even to the point that her teacher at school has made comments about it. Elizabeth’s family likes to think a little part of the donor is coming through in their daughter.

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