Auburn kidney transplant recipient to honor donor in Rose Parade

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 12/26/10 | 
Auburn kidney transplant recipient to honor donor in Rose Parade
By Gus Thomson, Journal Staff Writer
Ben Furtado/Auburn Journal
Kidney transplant recipient Valen Cover of Auburn holds the photo of donor Sally Robertson that she’ll be holding and showing along the Rose Parade route on New Year’s Day

Talk about a gift.

Auburn kidney transplant recipient Valen Cover will be a local to watch for as she rides in the Rose Parade to highlight the gift of life she was given by Sally Robertson.

Cover, 27, will be carrying a photo of Robertson in the New Year’s Day parade in Pasadena as part of the Donate Life float highlighting organ, eye and tissue donations.

Cover, who moved to Auburn in June from York, Pa., received one of Robertson’s kidneys in 2002 after both of hers were removed because of polycystic kidney disease. She had been diagnosed at 10 with a disease that develops fluid-filled cysts in both kidneys.

Placed on daily dialysis after losing both of her cyst-damaged kidneys, Cover said the outlook was grim.

“They didn’t think I’d make it when I started bleeding internally after my kidneys were removed,” Cover said.

Robertson, a York bank employee and mother of Cover’s best friend, found during tests of family friends and co-workers that her kidneys were a match. She was soon on a gurney on the way to an operating room ready to give Cover a precious gift.

“It was a real tugging in my heart – something the Lord laid on my heart and something I couldn’t let go of,” Robertson said.

The Aug. 13 transplant left Cover – now an administrative assistant at Auburn’s NTD Architecture – with a new kidney and a chance to live a life that had been threatened days before.

“I had been too sick to even get on a waiting list,” Cover said. “The transplant surgery was a gamble but it turned out to be what I needed to turn me around and bring me back to health.”

In June, Cover moved with her fiancé Noah Keefer to Auburn – a community they’ve been dreaming of moving to for the past two years – to find new jobs.

The two did that and about the same time, Cover learned of an essay contest that would allow her to ride on a float with 29 other people honoring donors like hers. Coordinated by Donate Life America’s Once Legacy, the national Donate Life float is supported by organ and tissue recovery organizations, issue banks, state donor registries, transplant centers and corporations like Astellas Pharma US, which sponsors five float riders from across the nation in its “Ride of a Lifetime” contest.

Cover was chosen as the “Ride of a Lifetime” west region’s representative to help shine the light on organ donations. More than 28,000 lives are saved every year in the U.S. through the gift or organ donations. About 110,000 people are waiting at any given time for a life-saving organ transplant. In addition, every year hundreds of thousands of people need donated corneas and tissue to prevent or cure blindness, heal burns and save limbs.

“Seize the Day” is the theme for the float Cover will be riding on.

“It aligns thoroughly with how I live my life,” Cover said. “It’s been an amazing journey since I was diagnosed with PKD when I was 10. I’ve done so much and experienced so many good things.”

The Jan. 1 parade will be a first-time experience for Cover. She’ll also help decorate the float and attend dinners and galas leading up to a ride along Colorado Boulevard in front of hundreds of thousands and many more millions on TV.

“You can’t get any better than this one,” she said.

Back in York, Sally Robertson will be watching with a special bond. The operation to remove one of her kidneys was initially painful.

“But you heal and you take care of yourself,” she said. “You can call it a gift to her but it was more of a gift to me. I received as much as I gave a thousandfold.”

Rose Parade

When: 8 a.m. start, Jan. 1

Where: Pasadena

TV: ABC, NBC, Hallmark Channel, Univision and HGTV

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