Real stories about what is possible when you #SayYES.
Virginia Beach daughter gives dad gift of life
Kaleigh Hennig had to wait four years to save her dad’s life. After she finally was allowed to give him a kidney, she got a scar, a healthy father, a new friend, a new job and a fiance. It started suddenly in 2012 when Kaleigh was 18. She had just finished high school and was…
The Fight and the Swap
At the age of 51, Retired Master Sergeant Douglas “DJ” Jordan already knew he needed a liver transplant. He just hadn’t told his family.He’d shared the news with a close network of friends and colleagues, but he hadn’t told his family. “I didn’t want them to worry,” he said. “But I had everything planned. I…
Alexandria mom and gold medalist returns to the US Transplant Games
Three years ago, as Mother’s Day approached, Lea Dozier was having trouble just getting through the day. At 36, the mother of two had failing kidneys so she spent four hours a day, three days a week in dialysis, in between her days at work. “It was tough for my children, seeing their mommy going…
A recovery nurse in recovery
As a post-anesthesia nurse, Laure Jean-Richard has helped her fair share of transplant recipients recover. And for years, she knew that some day, she’d be on the table herself. Laure was diagnosed with lupus at age 26, and her medical experience made her fully aware of how the autoimmune disease progressed. She prepared herself for…
Waiting on a Rainbow: Virginia Heart Recipients Inspire National Campaign
The rainbow has been a symbol of hope for organ and tissue donation recipients at Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters (CHKD) for decades. Perhaps it’s because of a rainbow’s startling, out-of-the-blue quality. Perhaps it’s because the sight of one means the worst is over. Or perhaps it’s because a rainbow is such an indisputable…
Girl Scout’s social media campaign inspires teens to ‘say yes’ to organ donation
They’re called Generation Z and they’re the teenagers poised to become tomorrow’s leaders. Ishika Govil is one of them. The high school junior just earned the Gold Award – the Girl Scouts’ highest honor – for her work promoting organ donation in Northern Virginia. Ishika, who attends Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology,…
One more day: Richmond toddler waits for a heart
Twin brothers Stonewall and Hawkeye aren’t your average set of toddler twins—they follow each other around like other little boys, each trying to run as fast as the other, and each collapsing happily into the arms of their doting parents. They’re not aware that every time the phone rings, the adults in the house think,…
One heart and the will to stay positive
Melinda Dillon has lived through the unthinkable, although you’d never know it from the way she talks. She’s upbeat, funny, and practically glows with life—she’s taken the words on the small tattoo at her wrist seriously, and she works hard to “stay positive.” The tattoo shows the lifeline of a beating heart alongside a B+,…
All Heart: Suffolk rallies for teen heart recipient
Chaunta Chalmers did what she always did while Jasmine was in the hospital last year: she looked at her little girl (far too little, in fact—a teenager trapped in an eight-year-old’s body) and said, “We’re going to do the best with what we have. We’re going to make the best of a bad situation.” The…
3 ways to save a life in 2018
We like to think of New Year’s resolutions not as a way you can work on bettering yourself (we think you’re pretty great already), but as an opportunity for looking at the world and deciding how you’ll be a bigger part of it. Sometimes playing that bigger part stems from something small—a little bit of…