{"id":25299,"date":"2021-01-10T10:27:21","date_gmt":"2021-01-10T17:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/?p=25299"},"modified":"2021-04-29T08:42:38","modified_gmt":"2021-04-29T14:42:38","slug":"living-donor-when-you-have-something-to-give","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/living-donor-when-you-have-something-to-give\/","title":{"rendered":"When you have something to give"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>
\"Brandi
Brandi Thornton, an elementary health clerk in Boulder County and mother of two school-age girls, recently donated a portion of her liver \u2014 two years after donating her kidney. Altuistic living donors like Thornton are rare. Photos by Joel Blocker, for UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Decades ago, Brandi Thornton babysat for a little girl who desperately needed a lung transplant. The transplant never happened, and the girl died at age 19.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo family should have to watch their child die without getting a lung,\u201d Thornton said.<\/p>\n

In honor of that young woman, her childhood neighbor in Salida, Colorado, Thornton has accomplished extraordinary acts of selflessness. Twice.<\/p>\n

In 2019, she donated part of her liver to a patient at Children\u2019s Hospital Colorado and in 2017, she donated one of her kidneys to a man in Ohio. She had not met either recipient.<\/p>\n

\"brandi,
Brandi Thornton, an elementary school health clerk, examines a student at the school.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thornton is one of only a few Americans who donated organs. In 2018, 17,553 Americans donated organs; 6,831 of them were living donors. Altruistic donors like Thornton, who donate to people whom they have no connection, are even rarer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe general public has this reaction of why would someone do this for someone they don\u2019t know? Why take that risk for someone who is not a loved one?\u201d said Jamie Cisek, one of Thornton\u2019s living donor coordinators with UCHealth’s Living Donor<\/a> program. \u201cBut the donors I talk to have the opposite reaction. They don\u2019t understand why more people wouldn\u2019t do this: step forward to save someone\u2019s life when they have something to offer.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Thornton, 46, the decision was easy.<\/p>\n

18 people die each day waiting for a transplant<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Thornton\u2019s childhood neighbor wrote about her looming death in a diary that was shared at her memorial.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just bothered me so much,\u201d Thornton said. \u201cShe was one of the most beautiful little girls, and so sassy. I remember sitting in the front yard with her and her brother. She was barely walking. She turned the hose on us and told us it was raining.\u201d<\/p>\n

On her driver\u2019s license, Thornton has always had the universal symbol of a heart, giving legal authorization for the donation of organs, eye and tissue after death. But it never made sense to her that there are not enough organ donors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll never advocate for someone to become a double living donor because it is extremely hard,\u201d Thornton said. \u201cBut I\u2019ll always beg people to donate after they die. Their story gets to continue after they donate and there would be so many people saved.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Brandi
Two years after she donated her kidney to a complete stranger, Brandi Thornton felt she was the strongest she’d ever been. So, she decided to donate another organ, and in May 2019, a patient at Children’s Hospital Colorado received a portion of her liver.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One deceased donor can potentially save eight lives<\/strong><\/h3>\n

About 145 million people, or 61% of the U.S. population old enough to donate, are registered as organ donors, according to organdonor.gov<\/a>. However, only about 0.3% of those people can actually become donors when they die.<\/p>\n

Currently, more than 1,450 people are waiting for a lung on a list from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services\u2019 Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network<\/a> (OPTN). \u00a0About 10 times that number are waiting for organs such as a kidney, liver or heart.<\/p>\n

Every 10 minutes a person is added to the donor waiting list<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Thornton is the mother of two girls, now 8 and 13. In 2015, after her second daughter\u2019s birth, Thornton was invited to \u201clike\u201d a Facebook page of an acquaintance. His wife needed a kidney and was looking for a living donor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Brandi,
Brandi Thornton, an elementary school health clerk, examines a student at the school.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With so many on the transplant list for a deceased donor, living donations offer another option for transplant candidates and extend the supply of organs. Living donors can provide a kidney, part of a liver, a lobe of a lung, or portions of the pancreas or intestine, according to OPTN.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, \u2018What if I test, and I\u2019m a match? But what if I don\u2019t test and no one else tests either?\u2019\u201d Thornton said. \u201cI didn\u2019t know her, but I kept thinking about her, about (my childhood neighbor), and about losing my own parents. (This woman) had a son, and I remember how hard it was to lose my parents.\u201d<\/p>\n

UCHealth performed 143 living donor transplants in 2018<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Thornton reached out to UCHealth to discuss becoming a living kidney donor.<\/p>\n

She met with Angela Miskolci, a registered nurse and living donor kidney coordinator who\u2019s worked at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital for 15 years. Miskolci takes potential donors through the process, starting with a discussion of what donation would mean, possible risks, recovery and the recipient pairing process. If the prospective donor is still interested, they are run through rigorous testing, both physical and psychological.<\/p>\n

Donors must be healthy \u2014 no diabetes, no high blood pressure, no obesity, among other considerations. Potential donors have blood draws, X-rays, a CT scan, ultrasound, EKG heartbeat monitoring and 24-hour urine analysis.<\/p>\n

Individuals meet with a social worker and a psychologist. A potential donor must have a strong support system and coping skills because transplant surgery can take a toll on the body, both physical and emotional.<\/p>\n

Most everyone has two kidneys and may potentially donate one after completing the pre-screening process. Kidney donor surgery is less invasive and usually has a shorter recovery time than other organ donation surgeries.<\/p>\n

Thornton qualified as a kidney donor, but she wasn\u2019t a match to her new Facebook friend, who passed away before a match was found.<\/p>\n

\"Brandi,
Brandi Thornton, an elementary health clerk in Weld County and mother of two school-age girls, recently donated a portion of her liver \u2014 two years after donating her kidney. Altruistic living donors like Thornton are rare. Photos by Joel Blocker, for UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first successful living-donor kidney transplant was performed in 1954<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Thornton was entered in the National Kidney Registry pair exchange program and her information was relayed to other transplant centers looking for donors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey do a match run and try to put chains together,\u201d Miskolci said.<\/p>\n

Unlike the liver, kidneys can be transported long distance and donors do not have to be in the general area of the donor.<\/p>\n

The goal of the kidney registry is to get as many people an organ as possible. While Thornton was not a match for her Facebook friend, her information was entered into the registry and a match was found.<\/p>\n

Thornton\u2019s kidney went to a man in Ohio who had someone willing to donate a kidney, and that person was a match for someone else in the registry. However, that person didn\u2019t have a pair, so the chain ended. Because Thornton was a \u201cnon-directed altruistic donor\u201d \u2014 a person who starts a chain but not for a specific recipient \u2014 UCH got a \u201ckidney payback,\u201d meaning that when another chain occurs, one of UCH\u2019s patients on the registry who doesn\u2019t have a pair will get to end the chain. This meant Thornton\u2019s donation potentially saved the lives of three others needing a kidney.<\/p>\n

\"Brandi
Brandi Thornton at crossfit. Photo by Joel Blocker, for UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The process is anonymous. Once transplants are done, however, donors and recipients may contact each other through letters passed through social workers. Eventually, Thornton met the man in Ohio who received her kidney and she also met another altruistic donor in the chain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure what it is like for other donors, but it\u2019s almost like this magnetic feeling \u2014 like an energy \u2014 like maybe your body knows that it\u2019s there,\u201d she said of the meeting with her kidney\u2019s recipient.<\/p>\n

Her family was with her.<\/p>\n

Most living donors are between the ages of 18 and 60<\/strong><\/h3>\n

At Thornton\u2019s two-year check-up with UCHealth, she asked if it would be possible to donate a second organ. Cisek told Thornton that it was possible, though uncommon, for her to also donate a portion of her liver. UCHealth is the only transplant program in Colorado that will perform living liver donations, and one of only a few in the country that will perform a second transplant surgery on the same donor.<\/p>\n

A few weeks later, Thornton again went through the rigorous testing and evaluations to be a donor.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrandi\u2019s liver was appropriate for any type of recipient, but with living donors, we err on the side of taking the least amount possible,\u201d Cisek said.<\/p>\n

20% of liver transplants<\/strong> at UCH are from live donors, compared to 5% nationally<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The liver can regenerate, allowing it to be viable for living donation. But risks are much greater for liver donation than kidney donation and recovery is more difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a long recovery, and one can anticipate it being 12 weeks before they are back to normal because the body is putting everything into regeneration of the liver, which happens in eight to 12 weeks,\u201d Cisek said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe risk to the donor is directly related to the amount of liver taken,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

Because of this, a liver donation from a living donor is often given to a child or small adult. The UCH transplant team often works closely with Children\u2019s Hospital Colorado in these types of situations.<\/p>\n

\"Brandi
Brandi Thornton at crossfit. Photo by Joel Blocker, for UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 2018, about 5% of transplant recipients were under the age of 18<\/strong><\/h3>\n

On May 2, 2019 \u2014 only months after being approved to donate a portion of her liver \u2014Thornton again underwent donor surgery at UCH.<\/p>\n

She learned that her liver would go to a child, and that weighed heavily on her. She worried about the organ transplant working, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really let it get to me,\u201d she said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t worried about myself. I knew I was in good hands, as I\u2019d been there before. But the thought of it going to a child \u2014 I thought of my own kids, I thought about (my childhood neighbor) and how she\u2019d been at Children\u2019s \u2014 how it had come full circle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thornton said that as with her kidney recipient, she plans to write her liver recipient a letter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll write the letter to the recipient, though I don\u2019t think (the recipient) can probably read yet. But I\u2019ll tell (the recipient) who I am, about my family, and then I\u2019ll share what my liver likes to do,\u201d she said with a smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want them to feel they have to get in touch with me or that they need to thank me,\u201d she said. \u201cI just hope they take my liver on adventures and let it experience life. I just hope this child is able to have a happy and healthy life.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Thornton takes very little credit for her acts of selflessness that have saved the lives of four people. She has honored her childhood neighbor and her Facebook friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt if wasn\u2019t for them, I would have never done this,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd if it weren\u2019t for the staff at UCHealth \u2014 if they weren\u2019t as amazing as they are \u2014 I would have never considered donating a kidney, and would have never done it twice had my experience not been so positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many other people that played a more important role in this, and if it weren\u2019t for them, there would be no donors like me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Decades ago, Brandi Thornton babysat for a little girl who desperately needed a lung transplant. The transplant never happened, and the girl died at age 19. \u201cNo family should have to watch their child die without getting a lung,\u201d Thornton said. In honor of that young woman, her childhood neighbor in Salida, Colorado, Thornton has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2164,"featured_media":25303,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,7],"tags":[270,3414,3230,9072,3415,2773,3231,4501,4502,37,39,1497],"class_list":["post-25299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-stories","tag-childrens-hospital-colorado","tag-kidney-transplants","tag-liver-transplants","tag-living-donor-program","tag-living-kidney-donation","tag-living-liver-donation","tag-living-organ-donation","tag-lung-transplants","tag-paired-organ-donation","tag-transplant-resources","tag-transplant-services","tag-uchealth-university-of-colorado-hospital"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLiving donor: When you have something to give - 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