“Heroes are people who give life”

When I decided to write a series on organ donation and organ transplants, I put out a call for people to contact me. I was overwhelmed by the number of responses I received and the stories that many of the people had to tell.

One woman, Susan May, wrote and offered to share her story about her son Nick, and the heart transplant he received when he was a baby.

Here is her story:

Nick was born with a three chambered heart. He had his first surgery at five days old, another at three and a half months, another at one year old and received a heart transplant two weeks before he turned two. He has just celebrated his 20th birthday.

My husband and I met in college.  We married and wanted a large family. My husband works in management in the production industry and I’m a homemaker. Nick is the youngest of our four children. If he had been born three weeks earlier my husband and I would have had four children under the age of four. We had no idea Nick had a bad heart until after his birth.

Just before Nick turned two we were told that the doctors thought Nick had a better chance of living with a transplant than having another surgery. We were surprise by the suggestion because we had always thought of a transplant as a back up plan. The longest an adult had lived with a transplant at that time was twenty years. Not long if you are talking about a two year old having one. We had hoped that Nick could live with his own heart until he was much older, then maybe get a transplant. Nick’s brothers and sister were too small to understand what was wrong but knew that their parents were concern about their baby brother.

We made a decision early in Nick’s life not to treat Nick any differently than we did our other children. We wanted him to have a great quality of life for however long we had him. Quality of Life isn’t living in a bubble, it is experiencing life and becoming a part of society. Nick went to school just like our other kids. He graduated from high school and is now attending college.

As a family we have traveled to 49 of the 50 states,13 countries in Europe and spent a week in Ottawa, Canada. Nick water skis, snow skis, plays tennis, wrestled in middle school and wants to be a sport manager for a football team.

Each year on Nick’s transplant anniversary we talk about what happen on that date, and I say a prayer for Nick’s donor family. As happy as that day is for us it is equality sad for them. We appreciate more than words can say them giving us Nick through donating their child’s organs. If they hadn’t Nick wouldn’t be alive today.

“Organ donation saves lives like mine,” Nick says when asked about his transplant. “Donate Life”

People are looking for heros. They think of sports figures, doctors, policeman but my heroes are people who through their pain think of others and give the gift of life by donating organs. There is no greater gift outside of Jesus’s gift of salvation.

You can find out more about Nick’s story by reading Nick’s New Heart or checking out www.susanCmay.com . Added at 3PM, EDST – Susan has just told me that if you go look at her site, the first person from now who mentions that they got to her site through here will win a copy of her book.

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Nick’s story is not all that unusual these days, but it’s not common enough. Thousands of people are on waiting lists for organs, many of them die waiting. No matter what happens in the future with Nick, that gift of life given to him so many years ago has allowed him to grow into the young man he has become. You just can’t put a price tag on something like that.

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Images: Newscom and iStock