Locals Transplant Home A Few Medals
Because of Connie Keyes' late husband Willis, dozens of people have gotten a second chance at their careers - and their lives.
Two of his heart valves beat in the chests of infants in New York and Los Angeles. His ligaments have helped to rebuild the Achilles tendons of two athletes. His tissues have helped three people through brain surgery, and his bones have aided in over 50 grafts.
Ever since a pulmonary embolism stole her husband in 2004, Connie's thought about meeting the people that received his body parts in transplants. But flying up to Pittsburgh for the U.S. Transplant Games in the second week of June, the Chesapeake schoolteacher wasn't sure she could do it.
In order for a donor's family to meet the recipients, the family has to write a letter to LifeNet Health, a Virginia Beach organ and tissue donation agency.
"I've had some trouble writing the letter," said Connie, who started working with LifeNet after Willis died. "I've started seven letters, but the wording wasn't quite right."
Connie and her son Jackson, a student at Hickory High School, were making their first trip to the event as part of the donor family group, for people whose loved ones have donated their organs to those in need. Hundreds such people would be competing in various events over the next four days.
The Games kicked off in 1982 and are held every two years - in other words, less time that Sabrina Waide had been alive when she needed an intestine transplant.
"She was strong-willed, and a fighter," said Sabrina's adoptive mother Melissa, who met the child when Melissa was a nurse practitioner at the Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters, where Sabrina was being treated.
In October 2004, Sabrina's birth mother donated part of her own small intestine to her daughter. Soon after, Melissa and her family adopted the little lady, and Sabrina's treatments decreased as the months went by.
"We were nervous the first year, because you're concerned about rejection," said Melissa (contrary to popular belief, donated organs can be rejected by the body throughout a person's lifetime; in other words, the danger doesn't end after they've been in place for a certain amount of time).
Sabrina still goes to the doctor frequently for tests and bloodwork to ensure that her medicine is working, and Melissa, whose family has since adopted two more children, says that the youngster will always have some intestinal problems, such as diarrhea. But when she heard about the Transplant Games about a year ago, Melissa was interested.
"I went online to learn about the 2006 games, and actually made me cry, just watching the video about it, the community of donor families and recipients," she said. "I just wanted Sabrina to understand the love and the gift that she received, and we thought it would be a great opportunity for her."
It's an opportunity that John McCaughan has been taking advantage of ever since in heart transplant in the early '90s.
"The competition is part of it," said the Virginia Beach resident, "but it's also the camaraderie with all the other transplant recipients. Each patient has a unique story to tell, and it seems like we have a spiritual connection with each other."
After a heart attack and five weeks in a coma in 1991, McCaughan received a new heart, and has since competed in seven Transplant Games. A few years ago, he met the family of the young woman whose heart beats on in his chest.
"That was awesome," he said. "Her family was there, and they were just as warm and generous as you could imagine. There's no words to really describe how I feel about the life that was given to me. Even after 16 years, I tear up when I talk about it."
An auto-immune disorder had cost Rita Ridley-Cornegay nearly 20 years of the athletic career in which she'd once thrived, and the Chesapeake resident was ready to make up for some serious lost time.
"I thought it was just a cold," said the former fitness instructor, who first became ill in her 20s. "It turned out to be something much worse." Indeed - she had sarcoidosis, which caused tumors to form on her lungs.
Over the next two decades, the disease virtually transformed her lungs into scar tissue and put her on an oxygen machine until the summer of 2004, when her doctors told her that her only hope was a double-transplant.
"I had never heard of a lung transplant," she said. "I had only heard of heart, kidney, liver, that type of thing."
Fortunately, the mother of two got two lung replacements in April 2005, and started volunteering at LifeNet - and exercising.
"It was wonderful," she said. "Just to be able to breathe was a miracle. It was like a dream." Though she struggled with organ rejection for some time after the transplant, the right medication put her on the track to health, and the Transplant Games.
Watching over everyone was team manager Paula Huffman, who played in her first Transplant Games in June 2000, just 15 months after receiving her own double-lung transplant.
"I suffered (with an immune deficiency) for 12 years," said the Chesapeake resident. "(The transplant) was an indescribable thrill, very emotional, very tearful. You're so grateful to be alive. I had no clue that I'd be able to do the things I was able to do."
After playing tennis in several U.S. Games, and World Games events in France and Canada, Huffman decided to manage the squad.
"I made sure they were hydrated," said Huffman, who also managed the 2002 squad. "Everyone was where they were supposed to be. I was putting in 16-hour days, it seemed."
By June 11, they all had arrived at Pittsburgh for the Games' opening day. On the second day of competition, Melissa stood on the side of the Carnegie Mellon University pool to watch her daughter freestyle with the rest of the age 4-5 group.
"There was a lot of angst," Melissa said. "I didn't know if she would get nervous, but she kept saying she was going to do it. There was a great atmosphere of encouragement, with people cheering for people they didn't know. I was screaming my head off."
It worked; guided by her water wings, Sabrina took the top spot in the event.
"I was excited," Sabrina said, "because I won a gold medal." She'd later finish fifth in a running event.
"I think she really loved the experience of competing," Melissa said. "She's already said she wants to go back and win more medals. I think she just enjoyed realizing that there are other people who have had transplants, especially kids, and that they are healthy, and that they can still do things like swim and run."
The next day, Jackson, Connie, and Huffman watched the racquetball players do their thing.
"I could see that (Jackson) was interested in sports, and I wanted make him feel like he was a part of it," Huffman said. "It was his first transplant games. He was there to honor the memory of his dad."
She went to a longtime friend, Bud Steckline of West Virginia, and asked Steckline if Jackson could present Steckline his medal. First, however, Steckline had to win one.
"I was like, I haven't even competed!" said Steckline, who coaches high school football in Bluefield, West Va., and received a kidney transplant some years ago. "But it was fine; it was a little extra incentive for me."
As he competed, Steckline wasn't sure if it would be enough.
"It was really competitive," he said. "The guys were hitting the ball exactly where they wanted, and I was diving around, trying to get it back to the wall."
But during the event, he looked over, and saw Jackson watching in the stands. There had been a ceremony at which the families of donors would be recognized at the same time of the event, but Jackson had skipped it to watch Steckline play. That's when Steckline made a very special decision.
When the event had concluded, he'd won the bronze medal in his age group.
"I was happy, but I was a little upset," Steckline said. "I've been competitive all my life, and being competitive, it wasn't so much that I wanted to win the gold, I just wanted to win. The games are all about trying to show people hope; you try to let people know what you can do after you've had a transplant."
He headed up to the medal stand, and leaned forward so Jackson could hang the medal around Steckline's neck.
"It was fun," Jackson said. "It was a good honor. Not all people get a chance to do what I got to do."
The same day, Ridley-Cornegay ran in the 5K race, and McCaughan teamed with Jerry Scheer to win a gold medal in doubles bowling, the 43rd Transplant medal of McCaughan's career.
For the fourth day, Jackson was watching Team Virginia's squad hit the basketball courts of the D.L. Convention Center. Because his state hadn't fielded enough participants to build a team, Steckline was playing for Virginia.
The team got a silver medal, and Jackson stepped out to congratulate them. Then Steckline pulled him aside.
"Every time I go to these events," said Steckline, who lost his own father when he was 26, "I talk to donor families, and I realize I shouldn't complain about anything. I remember (during his illness) that I was whining, 'Why me?' But everybody should give medals for the donor families. Those are the people that have suffered. (Recipients) have gotten better; we got a second chance."
He took off his medal, put it around Jackson's neck, and thanked him for coming to the games. Nearby, Connie and the LifeNet staff broke out the tissues.
"Everyone was crying," Connie said. "The people at LifeNet said they had never known any recipient to give their medal to anyone. (Steckline) was an awesome role model."
After watching the teenager skip the ceremony to present the medal, Steckline wanted to do something back.
"I felt in my heart that it was just a little gift that I could give," he said. "I didn't know how neat it was until I saw it, but it means very much to me now. It didn't mean as much until I realized what I was doing. I realized that the medal would mean much more to them than it ever would to me." As icing on the cake, Steckline later got a replacement medal, taking home the top prize in badminton.
"I was really shocked," Jackson said. "If I'd won a medal, I wouldn't give it up! I was excited and happy. It's nice to know that people on their deathbed can get something to save their lives, and now they're out here running and swimming. It was cool, knowing that these people are living their everyday lives."
As the events wound down, Ridley-Cornegay played on the volleyball squad and ran in the 100-meter race.
"I didn't place," she said, "but it felt so great just be able to do it, because earlier this year, I had a lung infection, and to train for that and take part in it was wonderful."
Overall, Team VA won 12 gold medals, 12 silver medals, and five bronze medals.
"I took away (from the Games) that it's a miracle," Ridley-Cornegay said. "It's just an amazing miracle, the whole transplantation. It's a miracle that a person can play a role in becoming a donor. We can give new life."
It's a miracle that she and LifeNet hope Virginians take more time to provide. Every week, three Virginians die because a transplant didn't come through in time; every day, 18 people across America suffer the same fate. There's currently about 2,500 people in the state awaiting a transplant. As Willis proved, over 50 people can be touched by the donations of one, and seven lives can be saved through the donation of one person's heart, liver, pancreas, two kidneys, lungs, and small intestine. Registering to donate takes just a few minutes, and can be done at any DMV, or by visiting the Web site save7lives.org.
"(The Games) show how well you can do with a transplant, and how important it is for organ and tissue donation," said McCaughan. "People think that the transplant patient is going to be handicapped and have a low quality of life, so they don't think about the transplant process. We want to destroy that myth."
As she landed back in Chesapeake, Connie decided to make one more change she needed to make herself. Though she'd tried before, it was time to make one more attempt, and this time she knew she'd succeed.
She plans to get out a pen, notepad, and a few stamps and letters, and take her first step toward meeting the people her late husband helped live just a little bit better.
"After going to the transplant games, I realized how important it is," she said of writing the letters. "It's on my to-do list this week."
