Stories

  • Audrey – Organ Donor

    Tiny Audrey was just three days old when she unexpectedly stopped breathing. Resuscitation efforts were attempted, but three days later she was declared brain dead. “I get most sad when I think about what I will miss out on, like Audrey’s first steps,” says her mother, Felicia, about her daughter’s 2011 death. After being told […]

  • Becky – Heart Recipient

    Becky always thought of herself as an ordinary healthy wife and mother. That is, until the day she suffered a massive heart attack caused by two separate blood clots. She remembers the fear and worry etched on the faces of her husband and teenaged daughter as she woke up in the hospital to learn a […]

  • Bene – Kidney Recipient

    Entertainer Bené was told by her doctors to get her life in order. Her heart and kidneys were failing. Friends rallied for her, but it was a stranger who rescued Bené from her terrible fate. A woman she had never met volunteered to step forward and provided Bené with a kidney. To the Northern Nevada […]

  • Cliff – Heart Recipient

    Cliff was born in Los Angeles, California, the middle child of seven. He grew up in a happy, loving, Christian home for the first seven years of his life. But everything changed when his father died at the age of 45, from what would later be diagnosed as hereditary cardiomyopathy. Years later, his 49 year […]

  • Dinorah – Kidney Recipient

    It’s February 4, 2011. Dinorah just got home from dialysis. Exhausted, she decides to watch some TV with her daughter before heading to bed. The show ends and she calls it a night. As she gets into the bedroom, it happens. The phone rings. She can’t get there in time to answer, so she calls […]

  • Donovan – Tissue Donor

    Donovan was killed in a car crash in March 2011. His family honored his wishes and donated his tissue and corneas. His parents, Eric and Meme, tell us about Donovan in their own words: Donovan Smith was surely taken away from us way to soon. Donovan was an 18 year old teenager when he died. […]

  • Lisa – Kidney Pancreas Recipient

    Meet Lisa. 15 years ago her diabetes finally started to take a toll on her kidneys. That meant dialysis for this nurse and mom. “You’re very tired, you’re left with not much time to yourself, it can make you anemic and that affected how I was, I slept a lot. I didn’t do my activities […]

  • Manny – Kidney Recipient

    Manny is full of energy right now at the age of four. But a few years ago, his life was much different. When he was two years old, this little guy still couldn’t walk. He had stopped growing and needed a kidney desperately. That’s when Cynthia came into the picture. “It was just hard because […]

  • Tammy – Liver Recipient

    Tammy is one of the estimated millions of Baby Boomers who grew up unaware she was carrying Hepatitis C in her body. She believes she got it decades before from a transfusion she received as a premature baby. In 2011, the virus attacked. Doctors said Tammy’s damaged liver needed to be replaced and soon. The […]