Media Contact on the Day of Event: Mary Ingalls, Pager: 310-298-6890 Media Contact Other Than on the Day of the Event: Sandra Van, 1-800-880-2397
LOS ANGELES (April 23, 2002) -- To commemorate National Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Week, April 21 through 28, Cedars-Sinai's Multi-Organ Transplant Program is sponsoring its first annual Donor Appreciation Picnic on Saturday, April 27 at West Hollywood Park.
Donors who have undergone surgery at Cedars-Sinai to give part of their liver or one of their kidneys to a friend or family member are invited to attend and bring their immediate families. Also invited are those who have lost a family member at Cedars-Sinai and donated organs or tissues for transplantation.
Among those planning to attend are Shirley Reed and her daughter, Lori Thompson, who saved her mother's life by sharing half of her liver during an operation at Cedars-Sinai on February 21, 2002. Shirley celebrated her 73rd birthday about two weeks later.
Although she does not know how it was transmitted, Shirley found out when she was 65 that she had contracted hepatitis C, and her liver was slowly being destroyed.
"It was a big surprise. I've been so 'hale and hearty,' doing a lot of swimming -- swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools -- with a master swim group," says Shirley. In fact, she swam every day or two and participated in meets on weekends. Although she never became jaundiced or felt other symptoms that are associated with liver disease, she developed chronic itching. After seeing several other doctors, she made an appointment with a gastroenterologist who suspected liver disease as the culprit.
After learning about the number of people on liver transplant waiting lists -- and the serious shortage of donor organs available -- Shirley's two daughters researched living donor partial-liver transplantation. They eventually contacted Cedars-Sinai and both sisters underwent preliminary testing to determine the best match.
Those who are reluctant to donate part of a liver to a family member baffle Lori and the members of her family. "We couldn't stand by watching her get worse and worse," she says. The testing process to make sure Lori was healthy enough to donate was rigorous, and the surgery and recuperation slowed her down for a while. "But it's not going to hold us back any. Just a little bump in the road," she reports.
The Donor Appreciation Picnic will begin at noon, and Steven D. Colquhoun, M.D., program director for Liver Transplantation, will make a brief presentation.
Members of the Cesar Chavez family will also participate. Last November, Juanita Chavez received a portion of the liver of her sister, Maria Elena. The sisters are the daughters of Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO (UFW), and Richard Chavez, a long-term UFW board member and the brother of Cesar Chavez, also a UFW co-founder. Following the successful transplant operation, the sisters and their families are on a mission to enhance understanding and awareness of living donor organ transplant -- especially in Hispanic communities.
The Donor Appreciation Picnic is one part of Cedars-Sinai's weeklong donor awareness program, which is coordinated by Glenn Matsuki, administrative services coordinator and assistant to Dr. Colquhoun.
Matsuki never underestimates the value of organ donation. He received a heart transplant in 1995 at Cedars-Sinai. Forty-five years old and perfectly healthy at the time, Matsuki came down with a viral infection that progressed to pneumonia and quickly led to congestive heart failure.
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is one of the largest non-profit academic medical centers in the Western United States. For the fifth straight two-year period, Cedars-Sinai has been named Southern California's gold standard in health care in an independent survey. Cedars-Sinai is internationally renowned for its diagnostic and treatment capabilities and its broad spectrum of programs and services, as well as breakthrough in biomedical research and superlative medical education. Named one of the 100 "Most Wired" hospitals in health care in 2001, the Medical Center ranks among the top 10 non-university hospitals in the nation for its research activities.
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