Bill Varner, a liver recipient who works in the communications department at Lynchburg General Hospital, just received his liver transplant from a friend of his who donated a piece of her liver a little less than six weeks ago. Varner walks down Cabell Street with his donor during the Point of Honor 5K, a race that benifits LifeNet Health, an organization that helps with organ donation and transplants, on Saturday.
Wearing a T-shirt that read, “A liver transplant saved my life,” Bill Varner walked Saturday’s third annual Point of Honor 5K course alongside his donor, Alison Baker.
“We’ve been actually coming out here for a few weeks, testing out the course,” Baker said from The Depot Grille, site of the race’s awards ceremony. “We did it in an hour and a half the first few times and now, we did it in under an hour, so this is great.”
The first event in the Lynchburg Road Runners’ Summer Race Series started outside Amazement Square and climbed to the Point of Honor by way of the Blackwater Creek Trail.
“I always have the race on the first Saturday in April because April is National Donate Life Month,” said Kevin Shroyer, the race’s founder and director. “To have a running event focused entirely on organ donation … it’s an awesome way to kick it off.”
Shroyer started the race in honor of his daughter, Korinne, who died in 2002 at the age of 14 from a suicide induced by Paxil, an anti-depressant not FDA-approved for children. After her death, he and his wife, Kristie, chose to donate her organs through LifeNet Health, the state’s leading donation agency, saving five lives in the process.
The endorphin rush Varner received during Saturday’s race was a byproduct of the high he’s been on since his transplant.
“It’s been a transformation, night and day, compared to what I used to feel like,” said Varner, a 45-year-old father of two who works with Baker’s husband, Curt, at Centra Health. “I have energy again, and don’t feel bad all the time. It’s fantastic.”
Varner’s mother had the same liver condition and died of bile duct cancer in 2008 at age 64.
Saturday’s race, run under ideal conditions, is expected to bring the three-year total support raised for LifeNet Health above $10,000, with a record 300 5K finishers and another 50 who completed a youth mini-mile.
That included 10½-year-old Easton Cox of Blue Ridge, whose mother donated part of her liver to save her life when she was six months old.
“Ten years ago this weekend, Easter weekend, was when we were finally able to bring her home for good,” Tonya Cox said. “To finally get back home, it was wonderful.”
She experienced many of the same emotions on Saturday, as her daughter was surrounded by media members and a crowd of supporters spurring her on.
“It’s a great thing to be a part of,” Tonya said. “At times she’d look at me like, ‘What have you gotten me into?’ But afterwards, she was on Cloud Nine. She was very happy.”
She said the event gave her daughter a better appreciation for what both had endured.
“She sometimes doesn’t realize what it’s about,” Tonya said. “She knows what I did for her, but when she saw that you can actually do something like this to raise awareness (for organ donation), it hit home for her.”
Easton, named by her father after the brand of baseball bat, is now a Colonial Elementary student active in cheerleading in the fall, basketball in the winter and softball in the spring.
Watching her run in a throng of healthy kids inspired her mom.
“To see how much she’s changed and to see her running that race, the energy in her small, healthy body, was uplifting to me,” she said.
On June 22, 2008, David Edmondson of Amherst County got a new lease on life, receiving the heart of a 32-year-old mother of two from New Hampshire.
“I am 39 years old and, if you count my second birthday, in June I’ll be 2, and I can already walk and talk and everything,” Edmondson said, lightheartedly.
Last year, he walked the Point of Honor 5K course with Lynchburg’s Charlie Ellis, a relief chaplain for Centra Health who was the recipient of a donor’s liver and kidney in 2006.
On Saturday, he shaved 45 minutes off his time to finish the 5K in less than 55 minutes.
“I finished by myself, right at the end,” Edmondson said, noting he nearly caught three ladies in front of him. “I’m keeping my last-place finishes intact because I finished last last year, too.”
“We tied for last,” Ellis added.
Both are happy to be alive.
Edmondson was born with two holes in his heart and underwent surgery at the age of 3.
“What they figured out was it just wore out,” he said. “It enlarged and just didn’t work very well and I needed a new one.”
The heart transplant has made a world of difference, though he has learned to make concessions.
“It’s absolutely a new life, and it’s a new look on life,” he said. “I wrote a list years ago of 20 things I wanted to do, like hike the Appalachian Trail, and then when I got put on the (donor) list, I wrote another list of things I want to do, which was ‘Hike, just go on a hike.’ Instead of, ‘Play golf in all 50 states,’ ‘Play 18 holes.’ You don’t realize what you lose until you get it back.”
“And you don’t know how sick you are until you’re better,” Ellis added.
Edmondson’s next goal is to finish the 8K in Richmond, which is another “Donate Life” event. Before the surgery, he tried it unsuccessfully.
“I did the Richmond 8K and started in a wheelchair and ended up in McV (hospital in Richmond),” he said.
Dena Reynolds of LifeNet Health said every year about 700 people receive transplants in Virginia and last year, the agency, based in Virginia Beach, helped save 368 lives.
“More than 2,500 people in Virginia are waiting for a life-saving organ transplant right now, so there’s certainly a critical shortage of donors,” she said. “If we get more people to sign up, we can save more lives.”
She noted everyone has the potential to save seven lives through organ donation, (heart, liver, pancreas, lungs, kidneys and small intestine), and to help more than 50 people through tissue donation. Saturday’s race helped her spread the word.
“It’s a great opportunity for people to learn about sharing the gift of life,” Reynolds said.
1 COMMENTS:
I live in the Lynchburg, Va. area. And I am not only a registered Donor, but a Recipient as well. Of a Cornea tissue.
Thanks to my Donor and their family, I am slowly getting my sight back, where as before, I saw NOTHING due to an infection and a self-inflicted (accidental) injury to my left eye.
I'm so very proud of the runners/walkers of this race! If I could have, I would have been running and walking along side of them. But due to bad knees at the age of 33, that is no longer possible.
Thanks to EVERYONE that supports Organ/Tissue Donation. Please, if you have yet to, SIGN UP to potentially give someone else a second chance.
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