By Afatamah McNair, liver recipient

It started with itching on the palms of my hands and the bottoms of my feet. This strange sensation led me to believe I was having some sort of reaction to pesticides. I went to my doctor and was stunned to learn that the itching was a symptom of an auto-immune disease.

As a result of this condition, my liver was failing and I would need a transplant to survive. Read More »

By Rob West, Liver Recipient

Have you ever asked yourself how you would do things differently if you were given a second chance? This was something I never asked until about two years ago but now I am living out the answer to that question. Read More »

By Diane Tefft Young, lung transplant recipient

Reflections on receiving a lung transplant:

In late autumn 2004, I was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. This typically fatal restrictive lung disease involves the progressive scarring and subsequent stiffening of the lung which causes breathing to become increasingly more difficult. Although I became tearful when I heard the diagnosis that I would live for only three to five more years – in that moment the time span appeared to be lengthy. Read More »

By Terri Louder, tissue recipient

I’ve always taken good care of my teeth, went to the dentist regularly and never had any major issues.  Over the years, I started experiencing painful sensitivity and my dentist told me my gums were receding.  Receding gums not only cause discomfort, but can lead to tooth root decay.  I was told I would need a gum graft. Read More »

by Emily DeArdo (Double lung recipient)

When I was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at the age of 11, a double-lung transplant wasn’t even on the horizon for me. It was 1993, and transplantation was still something that was rare enough to merit a spot on the nightly news. Besides, my family and I thought that I would never be that sick. Read More »

By Bernardo Añor, tissue recipient   (leer en español)

Growing up in Venezuela, I played soccer all my life.  I never imagined that my dream of playing professionally might not come true.

During the seventh match of my sophomore season at the University of South Florida, I was kicked from behind.  It was the most painful experience of my life and I thought my career was over.  When I learned that I had torn my ACL, I was devastated. Read More »

By Bernardo Añor, beneficiario de tejido    (read in English)

Creciendo en Venezuela, jugué futbol toda mi vida. En ningún momento imagine que mi sueño de jugar futbol profesionalmente podía no volverse realidad.

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By Shireen (kidney recipient)

After a few years of suffering from migraine headaches, I went to the doctor to find an answer to what was causing my headaches to get worse and more frequent; they were affecting my ability to work my full-time job as a creative writer, it was the fall of 1998.   They ordered routine blood work and a urine test.  Very soon they discovered that something was not right with my kidney function and I was referred to a nephrologist.  A biopsy was performed and the results came back, I had 20% function in both of my kidneys.  How could this be?  I was 24 years old, I felt healthy, I just thought I was a migraine sufferer who had to live with the headaches forever.  Read More »

By Morgan Mathews, liver recipient

My parents knew from the time I was an infant that I would need a transplant. I was born in 1981 with a rare genetic disorder that affected my liver. This was a time before transplantation was common, and my parents did everything they could to keep me healthy Read More »

By Sue Sheridan, mother of Sophie, heart recipient

It was April 13, 2007, in the early morning hours.  I had taken my eight-year-old daughter Sophie to the emergency room.  We had just returned from visiting family in Savannah, Georgia.  Sophie had been sick and had trouble sleeping the last couple days of our trip, and she had gotten sick a couple of times on the long car ride home.  We decided to take her to the emergency room rather than wait until morning.  I expected a usual long wait and thought that we would hear that the thick Savannah air had aggravated an asthma condition we didn’t know about. Read More »