MUSC Celebrates Forty Years Of Kidney TransplantsBy Bob Behanian
The USS Yorktown hosted a huge gathering to celebrate the first kidney transplant at MUSC. It happened back in December of 1968. It's just amazing how far this surgery has come in the last forty years.
"I don't know whether to cry or whether to laugh" said Velma McAllister.
It's easy to see why Velma McAllsiter feels so emotional. Forty years ago she became the first kidney donor at MUSC. Her surgery added 40 years to her brothers life. Charles passed away last year but that doesn't take away from what she did for him. And she remembers it like it was yesterday.
"It made me feel so good, there are no words that can describe that feeling. it was tough when I first started waking up cause I never had any type of surgery. I was out of work for four and a half weeks."
Donors missing 5 weeks of work is a thing of the past. Zachary Sutton had his surgery last month and he's living proof of how far medicine has come.
"As soon as I got out of the hospital felt a hundred times better, I was up and walking around. Just laying around eating Christmas food and wearing sweats just like everybody else does during the holidays" said recent donor Zachary Sutton.
"To know that somebody can give a kidney and go back to work that's amazing" said McAllister.
"Now I am back one-hundred percent, no problems at all. And that's really the amazing thing" added Sutton.
Out of the crowd of about six hundred here tonight, four-hundred and fifty are donor recipients. It's easy to see how many people this surgery has saved and how many lives its touched.
http://www.live5news.com/Global/story.asp?S=9725496
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