Organ donor recipient hooked on sharing her story

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Last updated January 20, 2009 9:04 p.m. PT
Organ donor recipient hooked on sharing her story

By MARY SWIFT
P-I COLUMNIST

PATTY WOOD, of Kent, just won't stop talking -- at least not when it comes to the importance of medical research and organ donation in saving lives.

But then, Wood has a vested interest: Hers is one of the lives saved.

Thirty-six years ago, she was diagnosed with irreversible kidney damage. "It was the lowest point of my life," Wood says.

For Wood, now a 61-year-

old wife, mother and grand-

mother, the diagnosis paved the way to becoming an advocate for organ donation and responsible animal research.

Wood went on dialysis. In April 1979, her brother Norm Ragan donated a kidney.

"A gift of life and love," she calls it.

That same year, Wood shared her story publicly for the first time. She was "beyond nervous," she says when she spoke to a group of fifth- and sixth-graders.

Never mind her apprehension. The students were fascinated -- and she was hooked.

In the years that followed, she spoke at schools, colleges, bioethics conferences and before community groups, becoming a compelling spokeswoman for both the Northwest Kidney Centers and the Northwest Association for Biomedical Research, an organization that promotes understanding of biomedical research and its ethical conduct.

"Some of my most emotional talks are to people who also have medical challenges," she says. "When they ask heartfelt questions -- like how it felt to be too sick to go to my daughter's sixth-grade mother-daughter tea -- it touches me so deeply I can barely answer the question."

With research, "the window of hope is never closed," she reminds those facing their own challenges.

Jeanne Chowning, director of education for the NWABR, says Wood "puts a human face on the impacts of biomedical research."

But not everyone agrees that using animals for medical research is ethical. Wood occasionally found herself confronted by animal rights activists.

"She challenged them to 'walk their talk' offering them cards to carry in their pockets saying they refuse treatment by any medical procedure based on animal research," Susan Adler, executive director of the NWABR says. "No one ever took a card."

In March 1987, with her brother's kidney no longer working, Wood underwent a second transplant, this time from an anonymous donor. Twenty years later, with that kidney starting to fail, she underwent a third, also from an anonymous donor.

It worked immediately but had to be removed a week later because of a blood clot from a hernia operation. Wood nearly died and spent six months in the hospital recovering.

Wood, whose credentials include being a member emeritus of the NWABR's Board of Directors, was forced back on dialysis.

Even so, she is an indefatigable optimist.

Although not now on a transplant waiting list, she is "counting on" seeing her two grandchildren, ages 5 and 7, grow up.

"I've had friends who have been on dialysis for 20 years and even get a transplant after that," she says. "It's a viable way of life, especially now."

Her advocacy hasn't gone unnoticed. In 1998, she received the Northwest Kidney Center's Clyde Shields Distinguished Service Award. A year later, she and the NWABR (then the Washington Association for Biomedical Research) were awarded the Research! America's award for Exceptional Contributions as a Volunteer Advocate for Medical or Other Health Related Research.

But her most poignant rewards are personal. Case in point: the e-mail a science teacher sent in December.

The woman heard Wood speak at a bioethics seminar several years ago. Last spring, the woman learned a co-worker's husband needed a kidney. In November, she donated one of hers.

"We are both doing well. I hope to start skiing this week," the teacher wrote. "Life is good."

Yes, Wood says, it is.

"Something came out of my mouth and into her heart," Wood says. "If I met her, I think I'd cry."

She says someone once asked if she ever gets "mad at God."

No, she responded.

"I wake up every morning and think: You get the chance to be mad -- or glad," she says. "I choose glad."
P-I columnist Mary Swift can be reached at 206-909-9612 or swiftyk@netscape.com.

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