Gift of Life Stories

  When my son was 14 he was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. In his senior year of high school, after 3 years of medical treatment, he elected to have surgical intervention involving total colectomy followed 2 months later with reversal of his ileostomy. He was 17. It was 1993. in 2008 he was diagnosed with PSC which led to complete liver failure. He was placed on the list for liver transplant in 2010. Then began my worst fears and strongest . . .

I am a three time liver transplant recipient that was born with a genetic disorder Crigler-Najjar. My first transplant was in June of 1991. It was a living related from my father. It worked great for the first two weeks but the arteries were too small and kept clotting off. The donated lobe was removed and my body was in shock. I began suffering from seizures and lost the ability to speak. I received a donated liver in July. I . . .

  My Dad, Curtis Thacker, lived his life to the absolute fullest. So much so, that he used up all of his heart loving others. About 5 years ago, he was diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure and had a defibrillator placed. Year after year we went to countless doctors appointments where they eventually called him a “Medical Anomaly” because of how he could get around so easily with such little of his heart functioning (5-10% to be exact). On January . . .

Betty Winston Bayé is an independent journalist, motivational speaker, and registered organ donor. She is well known in the Louisville area for being a columnist for the Courier Journal for almost three decades. Living kidney donation is very near and dear to her heart, as her first cousin and friend both received a kidney with this type of donation. As long as she can remember, the organ donor icon has been on her license. Bayé was recently reintroduced to organ . . .

Briana Craddock has been an advocate for organ donation inside and outside of hospitals for years now. As nurse, she’s had patients who went on to be organ donors and taken care of transplant recipients. She’s now back in the classroom in two ways: as a professor to future nurses and as a student, seeking her Doctorate in order to be a Family Nurse Practitioner. She’s been inspired by those students striving to be better and by her family as . . .

Dr. Christopher Jones knew at a very early age that he wanted to end the organ transplant waiting list. His grandmother lived in the Deep South where many people are of low socioeconomic status; however, that didn’t mean that there wasn’t love and care near and far in her neighborhood. Dr. Jones’ grandmother had a young neighbor, Rose, who Chris played with every summer when he visited. Rose was a young girl who was clearly sick, but not many knew . . .

Denisha Henry’s journey with organ donation started in 2010, when her daughter, T’neil, had a headache that wouldn’t go away. That headache was actually a brain bleed caused by an unknown, abnormal connection of blood vessels in her brain that had been present from birth. T’neil’s family knew that she was a giver with a beautiful heart and smile that needed to be shared with the world. They made the decision to donate her organs so that another family would . . .

The only thing seven year old Ledger Powell remembers about his dad’s transplant is that he would run to get him water while he was recovering. He doesn’t remember the times that his dad, William, was on dialysis and didn’t have the energy to play with or even feed Ledger. William received a lifesaving kidney transplant in November 2018, after being on dialysis for eight years. Thanks to a deceased organ donor, Ledger’s life experiences include his dad in a . . .

If you met Kendric Currington right now, you would have no idea that he’s been ill most of his life. At the age of 13, he was diagnosed with PSC, or inflammation that causes scars within the bile ducts of the liver. This was known to be hereditary in his family, as his Great Uncle died from it at an early age. Fast forward to the age of 27, Kendric was living right outside of University of Louisville’s campus with . . .

Elected in 2018 and taking office in 2019, Tanya Bowman is the first elected African American Circuit Court Clerk in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Prior to this, she was a deputy clerk in Hopkins County for 6 years. She was encouraged to run by several; however, she didn’t consider herself a politician and knew it would be difficult for a Black Woman to be put in office. She vowed that if she won, she would promote organ donation as much . . .