Whenever Stanley Lawson wanted to slow down as his end-stage renal disease worsened, he remembered a lesson from his father about two new shovels. Stick one shovel in the ground, and it rots, his father said. Use the other every day, and that’s the one that lasts.
“It’s been in my mind to push, push,” Lawson said. “No pain, no gain. Often, I didn’t feel like it, but I did.”
So Lawson kept going as president of Greater Harrisburg NAACP, hosting meetings and candidate forums, even when his three weekly dialysis sessions were lengthened from four hours to four and a half.
Now, though, Lawson has a new kidney, transplanted on April 30, and he expects to return to his energetic self very soon.
“I feel like a new person,” Lawson, 69, said from home as he recovers. “I feel 10 to 15 years younger.”
The experience is giving Lawson — former president of Pennsylvania AFSCME and former president of Susquehanna Twp. commissioners — a new mission to embrace. The first six months after a transplant are crucial to fighting rejection of the new organ, but when he’s recovered, Lawson plans to campaign for organ donations.
Read more: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/06/susquehanna_township_man_promo.html
{Register to be an organ,eye and tissue donor. To learn how, www.donatelife.net or www.organdonor.gov}
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