You have what it takes to save a life...
-- by Austin Faurote
Have you ever heard the expression "life is short?" Some people get to experience just how
short life can be while others get a glimpse of how short it is but are lucky enough to have their
future extended. Can you imagine how scary it would be to donate your kidney to another
human being? The need is very, very real. There are currently 120,990 people waiting for organ
transplants in the United States, 14,029 of these people need a kidney transplant. Last year
14,029 kidney transplants took place in the United States; Tammy Faurote's transplant was one
of them. 9,374 kidneys came from deceased donors. 4,715 of those kidneys came from living
donors just like Tammy's. 45 of those living donors were from half siblings; Tammy's is
included in that statistic as well. She is one of the lucky ones, l4 people die each day waiting for
a kidney transplant. The largest age group waiting is from 18 - 49 years old. At 36 years old
Tammy Faurote got her life saving kidney from her sister Tina Mann. If more people would be
willing to become living kidney donors or register to become organ donors after death, there
would be less death and less need for kidney dialysis.
Let me tell you a little bit about Tammy and Tina's journey. Tammy found out she had kidney
disease when she was in her 20's and in January of 2013 at the age of 35 she was told she would
need a kidney transplant soon or she would need to go on dialysis. "Dialysis is the process by
which uric acid and urea is removed from circulating blood by means of a dialyzer." Dialysis is
very hard on your body and causes fatigue, low blood pressure, muscle cramps, itchy skin and is
very time consuming. The ideal treatment of kidney failure is a kidney transplant, if you can
find a living donor that is a match to donate it is a much quicker process. When Tammy found
out she needed a kidney she had two people offer to get tested to see if they were matches, those
two people were Matthew Sampsell and her sister Tina Mann.
In February of 2014 they went to Life Link of Florida in Tampa to fill out some paperwork and
get their blood drawn.
A couple weeks later they BOTH got phone calls that they were matches, not one but two
matching kidneys were available to her; this is so very rare most people wait on the transplant
list for years
before getting their transplant. Tammy then found out she had to choose which one she wanted
to complete
the rest of the testing because they only test one person at a time. Since Tina had more antigens
match (3/6)
Tammy decided to have Tina be the one to continue her testing. It was a very smooth process for
both of them
and things moved very quickly. Once they had final approval they were able to pick the date they
wanted to have
the surgery done. Since both sisters have kids to take care of they decided to do it when school
was out for the summer;
surgery was scheduled for June 6.2013.
Surgery went perfectly and the new kidney worked immediately. Tina was in the hospital for two
days after surgery. Things take a little longer for the recipient so Tammy was in the hospital for
six days after surgery.
When Tammy finally got to come home she was very sore but felt better
already; her color was so different, it was like she had been on a beach vacation. Before surgery
she had started to have a grey color but after she looked like she had gotten a tan. Seeing
Tammy be healthy again and not tired all the time has been great. Tammy is very thankful for
her sister's generosity and knows she will never be able to repay her or thank her enough.
We could save more lives if everyone became an organ donor when they apply for their driver's
license. One deceased donor could save up to eight lives through organ donation and can save
and enhance more than 100 lives through the lifesaving and healing gift of tissue donation. You
could one day save someone's life whether it's somebody you know or somebody you don't.