I pulled into the parking lot and there was an open spot right next to a car with Iowa plates… When things like that happen, it makes me feel like she’s up there winking at me…
It was a physical therapy class at Rosalind Franklin University and I was invited to speak about organ donation, living with lung disease and being a transplant recipient. When I slipped into the back of the room with the professor – a few people turned and one guy noticed my IOWA jacket and immediately yipped, “go Hawks!!!” I asked him if it was his car with Iowa tags in the lot – he said he didn’t drive, but that he has Iowa plates…
Yesterday, I got to speak to a group of 30 or 40 physical therapy students. I’ve picked up these gigs on the side and I get to speak annually at a few different classes for students studying physical therapy…
I got to tell them about Kari – I got to tell them about who she was and what she means to me… And about what she did for me… I told them about meeting her family and friends – I started, as I so often do, by reading Jenn’s poem – so they can see Kari through the eyes of a friend… And I told them about climbing with her friends…
And also – very special to me – I get to tell them about the multitude of physical therapists who have touched my life…
I was often sick as a little one, but we thought it was colds, bronchitis, pneumonia, allergies and various respiratory problems until my 13th birthday, when I was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis… That hospital visit was my first experience with a physical therapist – she showed my family how to perform chest physical therapy, percussion and vibration, on my chest to loosen the gunk in my lungs. Over the next 25 years, I had probably a few hundred physical or respiratory therapists take care of me over dozens of hospital stays… I don’t know how many times the smiling face of a therapist popped into my hospital room at God-awful hours of the night or morning to abuse me for an hour or so. But they helped clear my congestion and made me feel better…
And, I told them about a wonderful respiratory therapist who gave me home treatments while I waited. She actually started years before – but while I waited, she drove more than an hour to make it to my door by around 5:30am – she gave me two treatments a day, each lasting up to two hours – and she did that seven days a week for almost three years.
I’ve had so many therapists throughout my life – and they’ve all prolonged my life… I always tell them how Kari will forever be my hero – that she saved my life when I needed her most. But people like them helped carry me to her door… They are my heroes too.
I never had the opportunity to thank so many of the therapists who took care of me in the way I would have liked to thank them. Too often I moved on to another hospital, or they moved on, and I never got to tell them what they mean to me… So many of them would be amazed that I’m still alive… And in my heart – I know that they are part of the reason I’m still alive…
When I get to speak to these future physical therapists, I get to thank all of the therapists who helped me vicariously through them – and I also get to thank them for the people who may not have the opportunity to thank them in the future… And I get to let them know that we remember what they do for us...
Based on the number of welled-up eyes I saw looking back at me while I spoke – I think Kari’s beautiful smile will be burned into their memories for a good, long while…
After the end, a neat guy who was helping teach the class told me that I should have asked if people were organ donors, and he made a point of telling me he will be an organ donor. He also told me that a family member had received a liver, and another had died in need of one.
He’s right – I should make it a point to ask whether people are organ donors, particularly in groups like this… I always finish by asking them to consider organ donation, and I ask them to talk to their families about it – and I tell them that there was a beautiful girl in Iowa who knew how she felt and she told her family, who I think about every day…
I guess I believe that when they understand how this gift impacts lives like mine, and how we recipients feel about the people and families who save our lives – that choosing to be an organ donor is an obvious choice...
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