Organ recipient and ‘donor mom’ keep message alive
The Villager Newspaper | Peter Jones
Photo: Robin Mitchell of Centennial keeps this collage of photos as a tribute to her son Joe and five of his seven organ recipients.
Robin Mitchell and Janet Rost have very different stories, but both lives were touched by the modern miracle of organ donation.
Mitchell, a Centennial resident, lost her 22-year-old son Joe to a fatal seizure in 2008, but his decision to become an organ, eye and tissue donor has saved the lives of five men and restored the sight of two others.
Rost was given at least two second chances at life after she received a life-saving kidney transplant this year. The Greenwood Village woman’s own kidney had been ravaged by hepatitis C, a disease she had contracted more than 30 years earlier from a blood transfusion she received after a near-fatal car crash.
The two stories are among the many that complete the ongoing circle of organ-donation. Andrea Smith, spokeswoman for Donor Alliance, the federally designated nonprofit organ-procurement organization for Colorado and Wyoming, says organ donation touches thousands of lives and has sometimes created new “families†of recipients and the grieving loved ones of their donors.
“It brings healing to the recipients, and of course and they’re very thankful, but we also have many, many donor families that receive healing from the process and really become advocates for the organ-donation process,†she said.
In the Colorado and Wyoming, more than 2,000 people are currently waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant. The good news is Colorado has one of the nation’s highest-performing donor registries with nearly 67 percent of driver’s license applicants on the register. Last year, Donor Alliance recovered organs from 134 donors and tissue from 966 donors.
Mitchell, a Centennial resident, lost her 22-year-old son Joe to a fatal seizure in 2008, but his decision to become an organ, eye and tissue donor has saved the lives of five men and restored the sight of two others.
Rost was given at least two second chances at life after she received a life-saving kidney transplant this year. The Greenwood Village woman’s own kidney had been ravaged by hepatitis C, a disease she had contracted more than 30 years earlier from a blood transfusion she received after a near-fatal car crash.
The two stories are among the many that complete the ongoing circle of organ-donation. Andrea Smith, spokeswoman for Donor Alliance, the federally designated nonprofit organ-procurement organization for Colorado and Wyoming, says organ donation touches thousands of lives and has sometimes created new “families†of recipients and the grieving loved ones of their donors.
“It brings healing to the recipients, and of course and they’re very thankful, but we also have many, many donor families that receive healing from the process and really become advocates for the organ-donation process,†she said.
In the Colorado and Wyoming, more than 2,000 people are currently waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant. The good news is Colorado has one of the nation’s highest-performing donor registries with nearly 67 percent of driver’s license applicants on the register. Last year, Donor Alliance recovered organs from 134 donors and tissue from 966 donors.
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