According to www.organdonor.gov, “17 people die each day waiting for an organ transplant.”
The Chris Klug Foundation (CKF) gives three awards each year to people within the donor community. The foundation invited this year’s winners to a gala at Snowmass Village. The Sopris Sun was given the opportunity to interview each award recipient.
Mark and Lynn Scotch, 68 and 66, respectively, are married and both organ donors. They were both the recipients of the 2024 CKF Hero Award. The CKF website details that the Hero Award is meant for someone who “has helped change or save someone’s life.”
Mark donated one of his kidneys and part of his liver, and Lynn donated one of her kidneys.
“Physically, it doesn’t change a donor’s life going forward,” said Lynn. “I think the other aspect of knowing that you did something that saved another person’s life, that changes you,”
These days, the duo keeps busy riding their bikes around the U.S. with their organization: The Organ Trail. Along the way, they talk to people and demonstrate, themselves being living proof, that donors can live a life just as fulfilling and active as anyone else.
“The most important thing is to get evaluated. Some people agonize over, ‘Oh jeez, I think I want to do this,’ but that’s not the question to ask right away. Until you’re evaluated you don’t know if you can be a donor,” explained Mark.
The next award winner was Denise Redeker, 60, a recipient of a heart transplant. She won the Bounce Back, Give Back award. This award is given to someone who “will not only have bounced back from their transplant, but … someone who works to give back to the community.”
As the CKF website details, Redeker was diagnosed with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy after the birth of her first child in 1992. After 10 years, she had a pacemaker operation.
“When you have a pacemaker defibrillator in your heart, you always feel it. At least that’s how it was for me,” said Redeker. “When it would go off, it would feel like someone was swinging a baseball bat into your chest full force.” Eventually, she was faced with the news that she only had a year left. Her fate could only be avoided with a heart transplant.
“Even though they had told me that a heart transplant was in my future, I always thought something would come along, some miracle drug, and I would never need a transplant,” she explained. “It was an absolute shock to me to know that I had a year left to live and transplant was literally my only option.”
Thankfully, she did find a donor. And today, she runs the Heartfelt Help Foundation, which helps families from across the country obtain temporary recovery housing post surgery.
“Patients are required to relocate to within a few minutes from their transplant hospital when initially discharged and they have to stay there for at least a month, sometimes three,” said Redeker. “That isn’t covered by insurance, and that can cost between five and seven-thousand dollars a month.”
The Heartfelt Help Foundation is currently helping their fiftieth patient. “We step in and find housing that is close to their hospital, clean, safe and private. And we pay for it,” she concluded.
Abby Gray, 38, received the Community Champion Award. This award is given to a non-donor and non-recipient who is involved in the transplant community.
Gray is a caregiver. Soon after Cook and her husband, Reid, got married he was diagnosed with Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis. It soon developed to the point that he needed a liver transplant, or would otherwise face cancer.
“I don’t think there’s anything that can prepare you for your spouse being in a major surgery like that,” said Cook. After Reid’s successful transplant, Cook assumed the responsibility as her husband’s caregiver.
“It meant getting all of his medication and having that prepared for him. For a couple of weeks after his transplant, I had to check his blood pressure, blood sugar and temperature three times a day,” Cook described. “I had to go through an education class to learn about all of the medications he was taking, what their side effects were, what side effects were normal, what additional medications he could take if he needed. It was a lot of education.”
Cook was also 21 weeks pregnant with twins at the time. She credited her structure of support, including her and her husband’s parents. Later, Cook wrote a children’s book based on Reid’s donor in an effort to raise awareness of organ donation. She is also the vice chairman on the board of the Children’s Transplant Initiative.
For more information on the awards and their recipients, visit www.chrisklugfoundation.org