Hello and welcome to the Gifted Life Podcast where we have conversations about organ tissue and eye donation and transplantation. You can always find us at thegiftedlife.org. I'm Maurice Co. I'm Joey Boudreau.
And I'm Nyla Schwab. Coming up on this episode of The Gifted Life. 444 miles biked. Four days.
I'm tired already. I know. And four women kidney donors. You'll be hearing about that in more next.
Wow. Do you really think that you can control much? Nope. That's good.
I can show you that but really good. We're going to talk a little bit more about that. Oh my goodness. All that and more right here, The Gifted Life.
Hang on. You're on the Gifted Life Podcast excited to introduce you to Miss Diane Mills. Hey Miss Diane. Hello.
We appreciate you joining us today. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. We're going to talk about Diane's story and then this wonderful adventure that she went on that really had this ripple effect in the world of organ tissue and eye donation, which was pretty incredible.
Thank you. So Diane, tell us a little bit about what got you into the world of donation. I guess we can go ahead and mention that you're a living donor. Thank you.
Thank you for taking that step. How did you get there? Well, I have a very good friend that had hereditary kidney disease. We knew at some point in her life she would get to the point where she would need to either go on dialysis or look for a living kidney donor.
She watched her father struggle for years with the same disease and deal with dialysis. And she was very hopeful that she would never have to get to the point that she had to do dialysis. She saw how hard that was for his body and his his his ability to live a full life. So when she got to the point that she needed to do that point in life, she started looking very hard for a donor to give her kidney before she got to the point that she needed to start dialysis.
And I she was living in St. Louis at the time and I'm in Mississippi and she called Diane at the time. I'm going to start looking and I need to start reaching out. And I kind of flippantly said to her, look no farther.
I think that's why I'm your friend. I think my kidney is your match. Lo and behold, about six months of testing later come to find out I was a match and I was able to give my kidney to her. We donated it actually almost exactly 14 years ago.
It was December 7th, 14 years ago that I was able to give her my kidney. The surgery itself was pretty straightforward. My recovery was pretty remarkably quick. Her recovery was also great.
And then being able to see her go back to living a really full and active life. She was a mother. She had young children at home to see her be able to really get back into a full active lifestyle after receiving my kidney was really, really powerful. And something that I'm really proud of and I wish more people would take the opportunity to consider doing that thing.
You went through that so quickly. I was like, there was no hesitation. I was like, we don't have any questions. Diane, one thing that a lot of people don't understand and it's so fortuitous and maybe divine intervention, luck, whatever.
The fact that you guys, you know, being a match for a heart transplant, you know, obviously if that has to happen after, but a liver transplant for living donors or any of our transplants, the kidneys are the hardest for donation to match up in our industry. And it's not only that you have to match up from a blood type standpoint, which is like the others basically are blood type and size. So you have to match up blood type, you have to match up size. And then there's a lot of different antigens, a lot more specificity, a lot more specific things that have to match up.
And the fact that you guys were a match and you're not related. That's, that says a lot. Like, I don't know, I don't know if I don't know if you believe in divine intervention or whatever, but that is a very like crazy thing that you said, I'll be matched, look no further and it ended up being you. Yeah, I kind of flippantly, not really understanding at that point what the process involved in it.
It is amazing and hindsight. I don't know if it's divine intervention, but there's definitely something bigger at play that worked out the way. And so we were all like, wow, because that's a major surgery and there was like no hesitation. Like you were going to, you were going to move forward.
Anybody in your family was like, let's take a step back, take a breath before you move in in this direction or was it just removing, removing forward? You know, my family was really supportive, definitely a few family members that were worried about my health and how that would affect me long term. They had some questions, it's not that they weren't supportive, but they did want to learn more about it. The third was 14 years ago, I think the advancement in medicine that the surgery today is probably even easier on the donor than it was for me 14 years ago.
But I say even 14 years ago, my recovery was really pretty quick. And I was able to get back to really active healthy lifestyle within a couple of months. And that includes three or four weeks off work and then slowly ramping back up. And I'll tell you too, kind of jumping ahead a little bit, but that's one of the reasons why I put the event together that I did, the big back right to raise awareness.
Of course, I was hopeful that we could encourage others to step forward and become donors or consider the opportunity to become donors. But also I wanted to reinforce for the family members and loved ones of others that donors can make that gift and still a very active healthy lifestyle. I mean, point proven, you did. Yeah, I'm talking about that.
I found a picture of y'all on, I don't mean to have looked like, oh, it's girls incredible. Okay. So you talked about how well you did, you know, of course coming off of a surgery, it's a big surgeon. And as you mentioned, medicine has advanced significantly, but still to be able to bounce back as quickly as you did without having such major issues is so amazing and great to hear.
I'm curious, how did she do and how did you feel when, you know, and I hate the science part of me always to, you know, infiltrate my brain, but how did it feel to like know that she started, you know, urinating and your kid, he started working inside of her, you know, for that first time? It was pretty miraculous process. Her recovery, my recollection of it, I wasn't there with her the whole time. Was that she bounced back pretty quickly.
I think she was actually up and walking because she walked to my room after the surgery before I was up and moving. So I'm not sure exactly how that happened, but she bounced back really quickly. I think part of it was she hadn't felt great for a long time. So when she had that kidney and it started functioning, they kind of talked about it like it's plugging in, like, like, did they just plug it in and it started creating urine pretty quickly.
And I'll tell you two, one of the things, while she'd been sick, we're good friends for a long time, one of our conversations did over the years, we talked a lot about her bathroom habits and I really, that was not conversations I really wanted to help with her. So the only thing I asked of her after, you know, I take my kidney, but please, I don't want to hear anything more about your bathroom habits. And she broke that promise and she called me, oh, I don't know, a couple of weeks, she was out shopping, probably more than a couple of weeks, but she was out shopping and had to go to the bathroom and called me from the bathroom and said, this is the last time you're ever going to hear me. But I have to tell you how nice it was to be out shopping and I had to go to the bathroom and she told me.
Oh man. Well, Diane, you sound like you make a plan and you get things done. And so I'm sure when you showed up and said, I have this idea, I want to ride 444 miles. I want to ride with four strangers who've done the same things that I've done.
I mean, that's pretty easy for you, I'm assuming. I'm assuming. Tell us about this wild adventure. It was pretty amazing.
I'm pretty proud of the group and what we accomplished. So I will say that after I donated 14 years ago, I didn't really talk about being a kidney donor very much. It's just not something I don't like to be in the line light. I didn't want it to be about me.
It was just more amazing that I had the opportunity to make this gift to a good friend and impact her life. So I went many times. I was like, where do you like to? You used to see one of the DONA.
And I happened to come across a group on Facebook that's called kidney donor athletes. I've seen another cyclist post a picture. She also lived here in Mississippi. She had a jersey on it, said kidney donor athletes.
So that of course, I picked my interest. So I started researching online and found this group called kidney donor athletes connected with them and started hearing these amazing stories of all of these athletes who had gone out and done the same thing I had been organ donors, living organ donors. And then they went out and did these amazing feats to show the world, to show others that they could still live healthy, active lives after donation. And that was really, really meaningful to me.
I connected with that message and thought, you know what? Maybe I need to start sharing more of my journey in the hopes of encouraging others to do the same thing. So I am a cyclist. I live here in Mississippi.
So of course, I had heard of the Natchez Trace Parkway. It is a great place to ride a bicycle. I started doing some research and found out that the Natchez Trace is actually 444 miles long, exactly, 444 miles long. So that kind of was the catalyst, that 444.
And then I started thinking, well, that's a big bicycle ride. I could do 444 miles. I couldn't do it in one fell swoop, but I thought I could do it in four days. And then, well, if I'm going to do 444 miles in four days, I need three other women so that we can make four women work in these ride the 444 miles in four days.
And we completed that ride at the end of September of this year. What did that look like? Like, when you ride, that sounds like a lot to me. And you're like, oh, I think I could do that.
I was like, oh my gosh, sure. She's like, yeah, we can do four and four miles. We'll have to run. We'll have to get to an hour bike in the biking class.
Yeah. And like, did y'all all rode together side by side? Did y'all take naps? Or what did y'all do?
We're all some bikers here, Nat. Have you not watched Forrest Gump? Of course you know. We just started out funny.
So I mean, I said I could ride 444 miles. I had to prepare for that. It's not something that I could have just done the next day. But I put the group together, looked through, posted on kidney donor athletes and had three other women, actually the first woman that I had seen with a kidney donor athlete, Jersey, stepped forward, wanted to join me on the ride.
Her name is Anna Coneyton. She came in from the coast of Mississippi. And then I attracted two other folks from outside of this area. I had Rebecca Thomas, who currently lives in Vermont and Becky Bussy, who lives in Colorado, also signed up and joined me for the ride.
So I was really proud that I had two folks from outside of our area come down and enjoy our southern hospitality. Yeah. But when I put it out there, we all four of us have different backgrounds. We all do cycle.
Some of us like more than others. But started training, really focusing on the ride. We started in Nashville and rode south to Natchez. And we did break it up into four separate days.
I know there's some endurance athletes out there that start in the morning and just go until they can't go anymore. That wasn't what we did. We started, we had a planned route. One nice thing about the Natchez Trace is you just start, you ride, and there are no stop signs, there are no stop lights, there are no, there are some cross sections, but it's really a straight shot.
So it's a great, it's a great ride that's planned out for you. It's not like you have to figure out where to turn off and find the next stop. So we just started riding, broke it down that we had a little over 100 miles to do each day. I think our longest day ended up being about 120.
But we had planned stops each night. My husband and Anna's mother both supported us along the route in vehicles. So we did have tech support if needed. But we rode our bicycle.
We were in 44 miles up to Trace. That is incredible. I consider myself an athlete because I do cross fit. They make fun of me here.
But I do ride. I like to ride. I have a bike and I like to ride. And for me, like 20 miles, 25 miles, there's a lot.
It wears me down. And I can't imagine if I do 25 miles in consecutive days, I wouldn't be able to walk. You guys are doing 100 plus miles for consecutive days. How do you walk after that?
You understand that? I absolutely understand. Really remarkably well. We were pretty amazed from conversations we had prior to the ride was how we're going to handle it.
It feels like they can't finish the ride and how to step in, how to support that person. And we never got even close to that point. Everybody trained a lot. Took different approaches to training.
My personal approach to training was ride as often as I could, as far as I could. Even that meant if I only have a half an hour, 45 minutes after work one evening, I had to be on the bike. I just made sure that that ride I was really, really pushing as hard as I could. Definitely training with riding multiple days in a row.
But we all rode very similar style speed and had great, very similar endurance. So we rode the miles together as a group. Not necessarily one right behind each other, but definitely always close enough that we could see where everybody was at and really just had a great time. Joey, I encourage you if you like to ride, you need to bring your bike over to the nachis trace and it's going to be 30 miles.
It's not a great ride. It's not a great ride. It's not a great ride for sure. But it is.
We have the family. We have the family trace here. It's like 40 miles or so altogether one way. So that's not 400 miles.
That's why I say I go 20 to 30 and that's about it. It's pretty cool that you guys were strangers that know each other, but you did have the one thing in common. You each donated a kidney to someone and said, let's even pay it forward more, which was pretty awesome. So you talked about you donating a kidney to your friend.
So Cannington, Mississippi donated a kidney to a stranger in 2019. Bussy of Colorado donated a kidney to someone on the waitlist in 2020. And you mentioned Rebecca, Vermont, a double donor donating both a kidney and a portion of her liver to strangers, which is pretty awesome. So successful ride.
I know you had some sponsors. I know you mentioned National Kidney Registry. I also follow kidney donor athletes. They're incredible.
That is a wonderful page because it inspires me. I also think I'm not doing enough. Not writing for a hundred and forty-four months, but it really shows you that you could have a full life following donation, which was what you set out to prove, right? Yeah.
A kidney donor athlete also financially supported the ride. So we were very appreciative of that. You mentioned National Kidney Registry and then also donate life. So Cannington Mississippi, one of your sister neighboring organizations supported the ride.
And we had great support, not only from our sponsors, but we started sharing information on Facebook. I was reaching out to groups that are passionate about the nachos trays, passionate about bicycling in the area. And we had so many folks come out, newspapers that came out and shared our story, radio stations that interviewed us, just individuals that shared it, became passionate about it and shared their personal journeys. We met a couple of folks along the route that are on the waitlist.
So it was really powerful and what a reminder to us as we were writing that that that's what we were writing for and to raise awareness because we wanted to help find those individuals kidneys. And I was also surprised we had a lot of folks come out that I was really just touched by that I hadn't really considered because I've seen the living donor side of it. But individuals that had family members that have benefited from the ultimate gift, end of life donations, not necessarily kidney. We had a woman who came out that her mother was a heart transplant recipient and her sharing her story and her appreciation that she never got to meet that donor family.
But that she could come out and share her story with us. It was very meaningful and powerful and still to see what that gift of life ultimately, what it can do and how it impacts people's lives is just amazing. Oh, it's beautiful. Look, Diane, I am from Mississippi and I know the Natchets Trace whale.
So listening to you talk just gets me very excited. It's beautiful. Beautiful location. And so I did Google, like there is no age to be a living donor.
There's not an age where like cut off. I'm inspired maybe. Are you thinking about doing it? Well, just listening to her story, you make it sound so easy.
I know it's not. I mean, I know there's, I mean, it's not like that for everybody, I'm sure. But I'll lead to see to hear your story is powerful. So I'm glad to see that you're sharing it.
It is very inspiring. And it makes it doable. That's the whole thing. It does make it doable.
You know, when we listen to people like you who've been able to do it. And as you make it sound like it was, you know, everything went as expected as planned. And then here you are, you know, 444 miles later, you know, it's like, ah, yeah, you know, we knocked it out. We didn't have any real issues.
It is really, it does put it into perspective that anybody, you know, who cares for themselves, who anybody can actually, you know, donate and still live a full and healthy life. And that's, that's to me a big part of what I'm taking out of this story. It's really amazing. I'm excited.
Thank you. It's not about me though. And this one bicycle ride happened to be a lot, but I'm no different than anybody else. I happen to like to bike and ride often.
So I was able to do this, but I'm no different or no more of an athlete than anybody else is capable of doing it. So I don't want it to seem like it's just a certain group that can donate really work. We're just like everybody else. No, it's the story.
It's just really love you. And Moa. And it's so humbled. You know, here at local, we always talk about the ripple effect like, you know, you do this good thing.
And then it turned into this massive deal that reached all these people, people that maybe we couldn't have reached otherwise, if you wouldn't have done it, which is pretty awesome. So one person making a difference. You got together with these strangers who now I'm sure your lifelong friends with this thing in common, which was pretty awesome. So guys, we just did a simple Google National Kidney Registry.
You can read about these amazing people. See the bike ride. See the pictures from it, which is pretty awesome. So thanks for what you do.
Thanks for taking the time to share your story. And thanks for helping us save more lives. Thank you so much. You're on the gifted life, taken a moment for mental health.
Yeah, I'm always curious. And today I have no idea what you're talking about. Yeah, like a lot of times people think we have, most people feel like we have control over a lot of things that we have zero control, right? Life is so unpredictable.
And you put all these things in place to keep somebody safe or to have a good life or to take care of your finances. And there's just so much out of our control. And yet we will spend so much time and energy trying to control it all. Well, like during holidays and things like in my brain, this was the setup for the day.
And then if we got off track, I was like, man, I'm a little myth, right? Like, I'm all this planning. Yes, I'm a planner. I had to go with it.
I'm a planner. So well, the roles will be hot if it's not happening the way that I've planned. Yeah. And so in operations, of course, with LOPA, you know, we focus on, we talk about three things.
And one are the things that we can control. And those are the things that are unique to us that we understand from a process standpoint, resources and so forth and so on. And those are the things we really make sure we try to get right. Then there are the things that we can control, but we can influence.
You know, and those are things that we can do things and set up to be able to have the best outcomes, but we're not necessarily in control of them because they require others, you know, input, participation and collaboration. And then we have the things that we just can't control, you know? And so we kind of split those up and try to figure out how we can best operationalize things based off of those three. You know what?
That helps me thinking about how we're not talking to families because we share the outcome of donation. And there's so many things that go into that that from when a family says yes, until when that gift is transplanted and that recipient walks out the door, there are so many things that can happen in between. And just like, it's, it's, we try to control what we can, but they're so little and all we can do is the best that we can, right? That's it.
I guess I was just thinking about it because, you know, like if you pointed somebody, because we always want to justify, right? Well, if you would just do this, then I'd be happy, right? You could make Lori, you know, just looking at me, I'm kind of sitting there right here. I don't know.
I'm pointing at you. I'm pointing at the finger back. It's like, all I have control over is, I don't have any control over Lori, who I love and is amazing. So when she's in my life, she's always a gift.
But if, if there was something that I was mad about, I mean, it's not you. It's me. And that's the weird thing to wrap your head around. Like, but even, but it's with everything in grief, people, I'll talk to people and I do it.
I do it. But, you know, they'll say, Oh, I'm going to, I just have to say, busy, I have to go to work because I don't want to, like, if I don't, if I don't, I'm going to be so upset and it's true. And that's healthy. So, I think we're always, we're always working so hard to make sure things are going the way we want them to.
But we just have to, you know, open up a little bit to know that sometimes we just don't have control and how to, you know, like pause and pivot. And do your best. And do your best. Yeah.
Thanks, Nyla. Maybe have a topic you'd like for us to cover here on the Gifted Life. Please let us know. Simple email will work.
Info at the GiftedLife.work. In every episode of the Gifted Life we honor a hero. Today's hero, Ada McCurley. And we learn about Ada from her parents.
Our Ada was our youngest daughter. We adopted her at 16 months of age. Her name Ada was chosen by our oldest son. He founded it in the Bible and it meant beautiful ornament.
So Ada was our beautiful addition. She graduated high school in 2020 and always wanted to take over our catering business one day. She was so sensitive to people and their needs and was always ready to help and give to people. She would go with me to the hospital too and she loved to pray with me for people's needs.
I remember when Ada got her driver's license. She was so proud to be an organ donor. We just never thought it would be so important of a decision. And now we pause and say thank you to Ada for the gift of life.
And that will do it for episode 248 of the Gifted Life. Thanks for listening guys. And remember you can register as an organ eye and tissue donor anytime. Register me.work.
Yeah, special thanks for dying meals for coming on and really promoting living donation and showing us a lot about life after donation. You can do amazing things even after. Always learn stuff here on the GiftedLife. Love it.
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Until next time. This is a production of the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency or LOPA. The GiftedLife is hosted by Lori Steele, Joey Buetro and Nala Schwab. Producer Ishelon Caraway.
And we are recorded, engineered and mixed, in our Covington, Louisiana studio by Troy Perez.