Kidney Transplant Patient Awakens To Love

[okarol]

(My comment: I was told that because there are so many patients waiting
in California, that a kidney almost NEVER leaves to go to another state. ...?)

Kidney Transplant Patient Awakens To Love

By HILDA MUÑOZ
Courant Staff Writer

December 24 2006

Moments before Jim Talbot's kidney transplant at Hartford Hospital, the lead surgeon in the operating room brought him a note from three young sisters he had never met.

"Happy holidays. We were on the plane with your new kidney," the note, written in crayon, said. Little stickers dotted the "Dora the Explorer" stationery.

Talbot, 45, met the girls Saturday afternoon in a hospital room as he recovered from his surgery. Sophie, 5, Julia, 7, Ruthie, 8, and their mother, Laura Evancho, brought him a balloon and explained how they ended up attaching a note to the box his kidney was delivered in.

"I think it's special that we got to see the box and send the card," Julia said.

She, her sisters and their mother had boarded a plane in Chicago on Thursday and were on their way to spend Christmas with family members in Rocky Hill.

They didn't know they would take part in a kidney's journey from California to Hartford until the plane's captain announced their flight was being delayed for a few minutes because it was on a lifesaver mission. Once the box with Talbot's new organ was on board, the plane was ready for takeoff.

"We were in a small plane and there were bigger planes. They were all waiting in line and we got to go to the front of the line," Laura Evancho said.

Once in the air, a flight attendant told Evancho the captain was wondering if her daughters would write a note to go with the box.

"Ruthie wrote the note. I put the stickers [on] and I wrote our names and ages on the back," Julia said.

Talbot, of Ellington, said he was put on a waiting list after the kidney from his first transplant became infected. He waited 1,056 days for his second kidney, which came from a young person in California, said Debera Palmeri, transplant coordinator at Hartford Hospital.

Talbot and his wife, Teri, said they lament that someone had to die before his own life could be spared, but are still thankful.

"They're not having a good holiday, but we're having a great holiday," Teri said.

She said she got a call Thursday morning about the kidney and brought her husband into the hospital for exams before the operation.

The surgery started around 11 p.m. While in the operating room Dr. Anne Lally, the lead surgeon, brought the note over to Talbot.

"When Dr. Lally showed me this, I almost cried," he said.

"I think everybody in the operating room almost cried," Lally said.


URL: http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-kidney1224.artdec24,0,2536415.story?track=rss

Copyright 2006, Hartford Courant

[Sluff]

What a positive article and proof that some of our little people of the world are on the path of righteousness. Congratulations to the recipients and a huge thank you to the family of the donor.