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| Diana Owens, left, received a kidney from cousin Kay Mohr. |
Most angels come with beautiful wings. Some come with beautiful kidneys.
I know one of those angels. Her name is Kay Mohr, my friend, and she just gave one of her precious kidneys to her even more precious cousin Diana Owens. It’s a story 30 years in the making.
Diana, who is now 63, was born with defective valves causing urine to backflow from her bladder to her kidneys. “It’s kind of like reflux,” she said. She knew her kidneys would fail someday – and when she was 33 that’s just what happened. Of the family members tested for compatibility, her brother Stanley Johnson and her cousin Kay, who is now 65, were good matches. Stanley was a slightly better match, so he donated a kidney to his sister.
That transplant – on Nov. 2, 1981 – was the first one done at the Kidney Transplant Program at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center. You can see pictures of Diana (then Diana Poff) on most of the transplant program’s educational materials.
By the numbers
250: Number of people from the region on the kidney transplant waiting list at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center’s Kidney Transplant Program; 1,500 people are waiting statewide.
92,200: Number of people waiting for donor kidneys nationally. They make up the largest share of the 114,320 people waiting for organ transplants, and the percentage is getting higher all the time due to the increasing incidence of diabetes and hypertension.
7,000: Number of people who die every year in the U.S. while waiting for a kidney.
To help
By the numbers
250: Number of people from the region on the kidney transplant waiting list at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center’s Kidney Transplant Program; 1,500 people are waiting statewide.
92,200: Number of people waiting for donor kidneys nationally. They make up the largest share of the 114,320 people waiting for organ transplants, and the percentage is rising due to the increasing incidence of diabetes and hypertension.
7,000: Number of people who die every year in the U.S. while waiting for a kidney.
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