Contacting the Donor Family and Others - by Katie DeSotell

My kidney transplant took place at the University of  Wisconsin at Madison.  Their suggestion was to contact the donor family as well as the procurement team to also recognize their important part in the transplant.  

My first letter was sent a month after my transplant to my donor’s family and my continued communication has been through letters and cards. I did speak with my donor’s mom on speaker phone with additional family members listening also. I shared my story of my notification on vacation in Wisconsin and expressed my gratitude to her son as well as their commitment as a family to support transplant donation. I shared with her that as a family, we prayed for their family before we left for Madison. 

I had hoped my sister and I could have traveled to Wisconsin to meet her this summer and have lunch together. Perhaps next summer when Covid is behind us I will be able to meet her.  In addition, I sent her the OTS Tree Planting program along with a few photos and poems from that day. She shared with me that her son liked the Green Bay Packers. We had a good natured laugh on the phone with her extended family when I shared that,  RESPECTFULLY, I was a Chicago Bears fan. To honor her son in a small way, at Christmas time I donated gifts to Hesed House, a homeless shelter in Aurora. Along with clothing, I purchased two Packers books for guests to give their children. One was a board book with a textured cover in the shape of a football and the other was a beginner biography on Aaron Rodgers. (I’m a retired reading teacher.) I shared with my donor’s mom that I donated books in honor of her son. 

At that same time, I wrote a letter to the procurement team to acknowledge and thank them for their part in my transplant. In some ways they are there to help but they are not acknowledged and perhaps never know if the transplants are successful. I thought of the social worker and perhaps the chaplain who sat with the family and talked through their decision. I thought of the hospital staff who prepared the body. I thought of the surgical team as they worked to not only help me but also several others. This letter was also sent to Madison (similar to Gift of Hope as an intermediary) and passed along to the hospital. I was able to detail my body’s immediate acceptance to the new organ and my rather early release. I shared some of the small steps of improvement during that first month. 

At the OTS Zoom Meeting in August, another participant shared that he also sent a letter to the medical staff that had gotten him to that point pre-transplant. I also did the same. After the transplant, I wrote a detailed letter to my nephrologist whom I had been with for many years. I also wrote a letter to his head nurse who was the one to “troubleshoot “ for me with test results and medicine changes. She was often the person who gave me my weekly shot. In fact, I saw her the morning we left for vacation for my shot three days before the transplant. I wanted my original nephrologist and his nurse, Barb, to know I was progressing nicely and that I was grateful for their care.