Lucky. Grateful. Blessed. These are just some of the adjectives that can be used to describe how our family feels about organ donation. Marty was given the ultimate gift on New Year’s Eve, a new kidney and pancreas. He was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes over 26 years ago. He learned to live his life with the disease and all of the trials it brought with it. The most trying of them all was end stage renal failure. Dialysis 3 times a week, and afterwards blood sugars that could swing crazy high, and then turn right around and swing crazy low. Marty started receiving care at Penn Transplant Institute a couple of years ago, and they efficiently and thoroughly took over all of his medical needs. They walked him (and us) through the transplant process and less than 2 months after being placed on the active list, Marty received the phone call that changed his life.
“If you save one life, it is as though you save the world.”- The Talmud
Marty apparently really knows how to celebrate the New Year. Our family spent New Year’s Eve together in a small waiting room at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Just 15 minutes after we welcomed 2017, we were given the amazing news that Marty was safely out of surgery, and that his new organs were “beautiful”.
Beautiful. Another perfect adjective to describe organ donation. Organ donation takes any normal person and turns them into a hero. It takes a person who is silently fighting their fight and gives them a brand new lease on life. Organ donation is a miracle, an answer to a prayer, it is the greatest and most humbling of gifts. Marty now has a new hero, our family has a new hero, and this is why we walk. We walk to honor the hero in our lives, and to all the heroes that are out there. Please join us in honoring those heroes who are saving lives every day.