Transplant recipients talk about donors at Franklin Institute
Jake Hafer likes to say that he was born - on Valentine's Day - with a broken heart.
Jake Hafer likes to say that he was born - on Valentine's Day - with a broken heart.
He had hypoplastic left-heart syndrome, a congenital defect that meant only half his heart was working properly. He got a heart transplant when he was just 11 months old.
Sunday morning, he celebrated his 20th birthday - and National Donor Day - by talking about his experience in front of the giant heart at the Franklin Institute. With its mechanical thumping in the background, he told a small crowd that a gift from a stranger - his heart came from a 5-year-old in Atlanta - allowed him to be a high school athlete and now a history student at La Salle University.
"Transplant works, but only because of donors," he said. "My donor is in heaven now and almost 20 years later his heart is still beating."
Hafer, who is already thinking about grad school, was one of three recipients to speak at the event, which was intended to encourage people to join an online registry of potential donors. The crowd included museum CEO Larry Dubinski, who sees Philadelphia's success with transplants as an example of the "way science and technology is making miracles happen day in and day out."
Howard Nathan, president and CEO of Gift of Life Donor Program, which coordinates organ donation in the region, said this area has the highest donation rate in the country. He said 4.65 million Pennsylvanians have registered to be organ donors. More than 5,000 area residents are waiting for organ transplants, including 116 who need new hearts.
Janet Dennis, a retired Nicetown social worker, said she went into heart failure 11 years ago after a virus attacked her heart. After a transplant in July 2005, she started swimming to exercise her new heart. One thing led to another and she began competing in multiple events in Donate Life's U.S. Transplant Games and the World Transplant Games. She proudly displayed some of her 32 medals.
"This has been an amazing journey for me and I am having the time of my life," she said.
Through her church, Dennis, 60, volunteers as a chaplain one day a week at the floor in the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania where she waited for a heart for more than six weeks. Through her work, she has met patients who died before a heart came for them.
Yes, it sounds like a slogan, but Dennis said these words to the crowd from her heart: "Life. Live it. Love it. Then give it. Become an organ donor."
Brynn Marks was a premed student at Georgetown University when her heart trouble started. She finished medical school at Thomas Jefferson University and was doing her residency in pediatrics when she went on the heart transplant waiting list. She waited 345 days. "I was afraid to make dinner plans, let alone question what the future would be," she said.
It has now been 920 days since her transplant and Marks, 30, is working as a pediatrician at Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington. She feels confident enough about her future to have a 10-year plan. She'll start a fellowship in Boston in July.
She thinks her years of personal experience help her understand how confusing and frustrating illness can be for patients.
"It's hard to take medications every day," she said. "It's hard to be different from everyone."
She thinks her gratitude for a second chance has made her a better person. "I do my best to honor my hero every day," she said, "pay forward the kindness that was shown to me."
To register as a donor, go to www.donors1.org or www.donatelifepa.org.
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@StaceyABurling