Here's the video and the story: Click on
http://www.newsnet5.com/health/15784042/detail.html - Video: Woman Donates Kidney To Teen
(Jenna's donor, again!)
Wooster Woman Donates Kidney To Calif. GirlPOSTED: 1:33 pm EDT April 3, 2008
UPDATED: 5:38 pm EDT April 3, 2008
WOOSTER, Ohio -- A Wooster woman did something few people would ever consider: undergoing major surgery for the sake of a total stranger.
Those who know Patrice Smith are not surprised she would do something like this, and a family in southern California is grateful she did, reported NewsChannel5's Alicia Booth.
When Smith puts her mind to something, nothing gets in her way, and it's that sense of commitment that linked the healthy 45-year-old Wooster resident with an ailing teen girl on the other side of the country.
Smith's journey started a couple of years ago when she and her husband saw an article about a local man who desperately needed a kidney.
"Just reading it in the paper, and I kept the article and I couldn't let it go," Smith said.
It turned out that Smith was a match for him, but three days before the surgery the man had an unforeseen complication that kept her from donating her kidney.
The opportunity for Smith to give faded but the desire did not.
Around the same time in Pasadena, Calif., a woman named Karol Franks was searching for a way for her daughter, Jenna, to get her life back.
A rare defect had destroyed Jenna's kidneys.
"Being in dialysis was so exhausting for her. I'd see her come home and think, you know, she's alive but she's not thriving," said Karol Franks.
Jenna needed a kidney but her youth was wasting away as she waited to move up on the recipient list. It would be at least another five or six years.
So her mother used the Internet to share Jenna's story, to try to find a stranger willing to give her daughter a kidney.
There were many painful ups and down until Smith happened to see the site.
"And I read the story of Jenna and I e-mailed Karol, her mother, and I said, 'I think I can help you,'" said Smith.
Smith was tested and she turned out to be a match.
"And I got a phone call and they said she was a match and I remember, just being so relieved and happy that this was going to happen," said Karol Franks.
Their initial meeting near the hospital in San Diego was a little awkward at first.
"By the time we left, I mean, we were hugging and we knew that it was for real," said Smith.
Smith knew for sure she had made the right decision when she saw Jenna right after the transplant.
"It was just an unbelievable feeling to see her happy and color in her face, oh my gosh, it was amazing," said Smith.
"She kind of inspires me because she's very athletic and she's kind of inspires me to take better care of myself," said Jenna.
"She really is an amazing person. I've never met anybody like that. It's a miracle that we met and the miracle just continues," said Karol Franks.
Three months to the day after the surgery, Smith ran in the Boston Marathon with one less kidney, but a fuller heart.
"There's just a lot of greatness in knowing that you did something good that you changed somebody's life," said Smith.
By law kidney donors are not allowed to accept payment, but they can be reimbursed for their expenses and lost time at work.
Karol Franks said she had to insist numerous times that Smith tell her what she had spent on airfare and hotel rooms, and she finally gave her a number.
Franks sent a check to smith, and Smith turned around and gave the money to a Wooster family that was having trouble paying their medical expenses.
Meanwhile, Jenna is feeling good and has a job now.
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