And welcome to the gifted like podcast where we have conversations about organ tissue and eye donation. I'm Lori Steele. I'm Joey Boudreau. And I'm Sally Centry.
And we are so glad that you decided to tune in. Hell, your friends about us. We would love that. Our message, our goal is to try to increase our donor registry to save more lives and we need you to do it.
Let's talk about what's coming up on this episode. We'll start with some super cool LSU students who have graduated, but they increased Louisiana's donor registry. They spread awareness on and off campus and will tell you how they use some good old crawfish to do it. Sounds genius.
Yeah. And in our recovery segment, Lori, we're going to talk to the parents of a six month old hero. We're going to share their touching story about donation. And in our family support segment, we're going to talk about the history of our donor family quilts and the numbers of quilts that we have now and how people can get to see them.
The designs are amazing in themselves. I mean, there's a story for each. So we'll talk about that. We're on our hero.
And we want folks to hear what we're talking about. So we need your help and it's easy, right? Most definitely, Lori. You can find us anywhere.
You can find us on iTunes, Google Play or any of your favorite podcast apps. Sally, I told Joey's friends how to listen to him on the guitar podcast. That's great. Now there's a chain reaction.
So I love that. So it just takes one person. We finally have a group of people that can actually understand me when I ramble. His cage in accent.
I love it. That's good though. Also guys, we're on social media. So we try to make it as easy for you as possible.
So donate live Louisiana on Facebook. So you'll see some pictures, see what's going on. You know, we want you to join in also we're on Instagram, Twitter, at donate live Louisiana. But we also want to hear from you too.
So give us a call by zero four six four eight three four seven seven. Yeah. We may even play your audio here on the podcast. We want it to be interactive and we want this podcast to grow, but it starts with you.
Let's get this podcast underway. In our community segment today, we are spotlighting six outstanding LSU graduates who adopted donation this semester and really knocked it out of the park. They increased Louisiana's donor registry by hundred several hundred have pledged to talk to their families about donation. Just an incredible campaign.
So we've asked Miss Caitlin King, who was part of that crew known as 225 Communications to join us on this podcast because we want to hear how it was from their side. We get to see all the benefits and you know, they did all the work, which we love. Hey, Miss Caitlin. Hey, Lori, how's it going?
But how does it feel to be a college graduate? We were all thinking back. Exciting, a little exhausted at this point. But it feels good.
You know, we know all of our hard work has really come into fruition now and just looking forward to the future. Yeah. So Joanne Sally to kind of fill you guys in and all of our listeners. We have this wonderful professor who was just recognized for being a pioneer in the classroom, but she runs a service learning class.
And so it's a PR campaigns class. And so these kids are charged with actually putting a campaign in motion. They have to show results. And Loba gets to work with these amazing students who are now lifelong advocates for donations.
So Miss Caitlin, were you overwhelmed when you were assigned Loba and found out that there was so much writing on your work? We were definitely a little overwhelmed with the course itself. It was a lot of work just because of how much Dr. Bruce Arda challenges us.
But as far as being paired with Loba, we were so excited about the opportunity. We know what wonderful work Loba already does. And we were just excited to be able to add and leave our own legacy. I was able to see some of the results when Lori passed the thick, thick book of registries that you guys had.
I'm curious. How did you guys do it? Just a lot of hard work in planning and really trying to define with Lori from the beginning what she wanted out of us. We got to learn so much about Loba through this process.
And we saw that a big need with organ donation is for minorities to sign up because so many minorities need organ donation. And obviously, people who know anything about organ donation know that matching organs with ethnicities is more favorable to the people who can receive an organ. So Lori talked a lot about that to us. And so we tried to focus on that targeting different minorities on the LSU campus to try and educate and inform and get them involved themselves.
So there's a lot of reaching out and trying to make things fun and exciting so that people actually wanted to come to our events. And then we just sort of surprised them with education. Yeah, let's go when people want to come. But I was telling Sally and Joey that you guys use free crawfish and jambalaya and you know, it flyers in bathrooms.
So kind of talk about the execution of your plan. We're going to increase the donor registry. We're going to increase awareness. And some of the steps that you guys took to make that happen.
Definitely after our own personal research, we just looked around campus to try and target the areas where we knew students would be most. We plastered every single building on campus with flyers, informational flyers, debunking some of the myths that people believe about organ donation that are totally not it all true but somehow have gotten into the hearts of many people in the area. And so we just plastered the buildings with those. We plastered the buildings with flyers for our picnic event, what that you mentioned, where we had crawfish and jambalaya and boot anvil.
Those were all donated by Tony C-Poot and the jambalaya shop. We were really lucky to have that huge event be such a success. Getting into the areas, even like you said in the bathroom stalls, where people would definitely have to see our flyers on a daily basis leading up to the event. Well, and it worked because, and Dr.
Jinx, every time I pass her, we do a text or an email. She said, over 700 people on the parade grounds for these kids. And I said, I knew it was amazing. And it felt incredible to see the huge line of people wrapping around the corner of the parade grounds to talk with us about organ donation and to get free crawfish and jambalaya.
It was pretty awesome. You announced free food at a university. It's guaranteed to get it from. It's a good way to do it.
Well, Caitlin, were you already signed up to be an organ donor prior to becoming involved with this? I can't say that I knew everything, all the great information that we've learned from Lori, but definitely from my first opportunity to sign up, I felt like, why not continue giving as long as you can? Good for you. And Sally, I know you had mentioned this with one of our previous LSU groups, but they did on campus and off campus events.
One of the things they did was a trivia night. It was fun. It was fun. It was easy.
Lots of people came in. People you could tell were having a good time. They were interested. They wanted to know what was going on.
And these guys filled them in. Yeah, it was great. So they reinvigorated some of our volunteers. Some of our volunteers who hadn't been involved in a while did because it was fun.
It was like trivia, prizes, like fun stuff. And through this group, we have someone who's waiting on a transplant who not only went to their event but helped them spread donor awareness at their event. And we wouldn't have made that connection without these kiddos. So kudos to you, Miss Caitlin.
So what is next? I mean, you graduated. So you made it. Great.
So I'm working at a marketing department at a travel company. I worked with the last several summers. And then after that, I'm just looking for a job in my field. Probably something related to nonprofit.
I've worked with y'all and I work with our lady like children's hospital all throughout my college career. So I really enjoyed that. And I look around to see where it fits me best. Right.
So she's looking everyone. If you know, also we have to talk about the incredible Dr. Jinks Broussard without her vision. You know, we wouldn't have met yet.
Yes, of course, Dr. Broussard is absolutely amazing. She's obviously was just recently recognized as being a pioneer in her field. She truly is.
And without her, we never would have had the push to do so much that we did this semester. She really inspired us from the beginning and on keeping us on track, asking us about deadlines and who we were talking to and giving us new insight and new ideas to make our campaign more creative and the best that it can be. And it worked. Joey, you remember those tough professors?
I was like, come on, you got to get it. It was two years ago. I can't remember that far. But it was worth, yeah, we were all sitting here trying to think back like, do you remember that graduation college?
You remember that time? It's kind of foggy for some of us. But Caitlin, you were amazing. The crew was amazing.
I know you're representing five other folks who worked hard, worked in the rain guys. They had rain issues. But everything worked in your favor. So thank you so much.
Oh, yes. Thank you. Yeah. I'm here with y'all today.
But it was myself, David, Anna, Brooke, Rachel, Megan, all six of us working also as along with you and with Dr. Broussard. Thank you so much, by the way. We really could not have done any of this without your help or without Dr.
Broussard's help. Y'all really pushed us along and helped us get where we could be. I think she paid you for all this. Caitlin's my favorite.
Sorry. Well, special thank you to the crew, 225 Communications and for everything full to them and to Dr. Jinks Broussard. In our recovery segment, we want to talk about the incredible story, the life of John Clark Perry.
He was a pint-sized lifesaver. Just a cute thing. We want to talk to his mom, Holly, and his dad, Jonathan. They're going to tell us about his incredible life and his legacy.
And they join us now. Hi, guys. Hi. So this story is so incredible.
We want people to hear it and we thank you for taking the time to do that. But we want to start with this little guy, John Clark Perry. So he was six months old, Mom. So tell us your favorite memories, Mom and Dad about this little guy.
He was like any time you were just sitting on the couch. I don't know. He was the best little snuggler and that's probably off. Really need to say right.
Yeah, Mom. You know, twin sister Ella. Our house was just really. And it was always the joke.
We called him the good one. That one. Ella was that one and he was the good one. Yeah.
He went to sleep. He was laying down. He ever cried. Ella still handfuls.
I still have him too with her now. But when he woke up in the morning and he was happy, Ella wakes up screaming. And even at the youngest age, pretty much as soon as I was going to open, he loved watching football. And it was always kind of a joke.
You take a picture and there was a football on TV. He's always looking at the TV. Everybody's looking at the picture. So we still have some pretty good pictures where we were trying to get a family photo and he's off looking off to the TV for his body shoulders.
That's a proud dad right there. I hear that. I love it. And so we posted this story on donate life Louisiana so you can see this precious little face.
So we know he was six months old and now we know he's a hero too. So can you mom and dad get us to that point? I was like, you're thinking too much about it. There's some of ours that's going around daycare.
So since I was off, I'm going to take him up to daycare. I'm going to take him up to the doctor. I assumed it was an ear infection. They prayed to his finger to do some blood work and they let us know of anything out of the ordinary that was going on.
And thank God, literally, that we had family pictures scheduled at night. And we got home and I was with my parents, I was taking family pictures. And he still wasn't sleeping a lot and really went acting like himself. But we finally got him up and got some really good family pictures at night.
We took him to a friend of ours who's a pediatrician and he looked him over and he said, look, he's probably just got a really bad bug. John Clark actually took a bottle that night and he said, look, just came to the pediatrician, I think he just got a really bad bug. We went home that night, he slept through the night, was a little fussy and then was continued to act like he wouldn't feel him good the next morning. And that's when Holly and I was at the pediatrician which ultimately landed us in the PSCU at St.
Francis. They decided to do a CAT scan and that's when it revealed that he had a pretty severe brain bleed. And with someone that young that they should have a brain bleed. And for those, the listeners, we call that also a hemorrhagic stroke, which is something we've talked about on the podcast before.
And you just generally don't see it with children. It's usually someone with high blood pressure and adult and things like that. So I can certainly see that it would be kind of passed off as a bug or as a virus or something early on and why they would take some time before doing a CAT scan. It's actually malformation.
I was doing some research. I was showing up at such a young age. Usually it's anywhere from 10 to 40. I was reading and I was just kind of took everybody, boss up.
There's lots of emotions. I'm sure lots of tears. You guys are doing great and strong now. But then you're faced with the fact that your son has died.
And then now what? Yeah. He, after Thanksgiving Day, we got a call Friday morning at 5am and they said we need to come back to the hospital and Dr. Mune just told us.
He said he started bleeding again and he said there's really nothing I can do. So he said, but one thing we need to talk about is organ donation. He was able to actually save two lives, a little child with a child with a child with a child with a liver transplant and then of course Davis who was waiting on a heart transplant. So can you tell us a little bit about that?
How do you find out about Davis and him needing a transplant? Park went to the start on a Monday night and that following Saturday night we had his services on Friday and then Saturday night I get a message from a girl that went to church with us and she just said, do what you want with this message but I just want to let you know. I'm friends with this person on Facebook. They're from my same hometown and I think her little boy might have received John Clark's heart.
And it did take Jonathan Long to do a little Facebook talk in and Google and I mean first thing he popped up with was what you put like little boy? I typed in heart transplant or infant heart transplant and it popped up a story in Alabama that they had been following the news and following the Boswells for several months and they said they were looking for a heart and I knew they had to be them because the local people had told us that you've got a four hour window which would make it even more complicated to get a heart for if a child needed a heart for an if you found one happy within four hours and there's a lot of things that had to happen for that to work and so I knew that had to be the child that received it and I got on Facebook and typed in Amanda's name and I was shocked because when it popped up it said we had two mutual friends. One of our mutual friends was one of my best friends who was three years old that lived down the street from me and his sister-in-law and I thought well this is crazy. Well there's no way they know because they would have said something and so I called my best friend and his wife answered and I said yeah I knew the Boswells are and she asked kind of the stone sounds she said why are you asking?
And I said well I think that's who got John Clark's heart and she said well we've been holding him we weren't sure that we wanted to get notification but we had found out her sister actually lives in Auburn with the Boswells and they were all pretty sure and that's when they started checking the tail numbers and knew that a plane from Birmingham was blowing in at night and so we just kind of put it all together and you know we didn't know 100% but we were 95% sure that the Boswells and David said received it hard and we weren't really sure what to do next because we didn't have confirmation so I think I kind of sat on it for a little bit and then I thought it was a little bit and then I thought it was a little bit if you don't call this or Facebook this girl I'm gonna have to I can't take it anymore. I'll hit her up on Facebook and we've come to find out that they know about our situation and they kind of suspected that it was John Clark's heart as well so she had kind of been following us on Facebook we were following them on Facebook so I started talking back and forth. We talked through Facebook Messenger and then text message from December to the end of March and then at the end of March that's whenever I called her because she had sent me a text and said hey she had told me she was speaking at their local hospital EAMC for donate life months and she said I went to the meeting today and they asked if I knew the donors and she told them yes and they said well would you feel comfortable inviting them and she said I was very hesitant to invite you and ask you this just because I know it's a lot and I mean I was so excited at that point because I've been praying and asking God to tell me when would be the right time for us to meet because I wanted to meet them but I didn't want to offer it so me having to call her up and say hey I want to meet how do y'all feel and it just ended up working out. We flew in on a Tuesday and we met them Tuesday night and then their organization ceremony was Wednesday morning at the hospital and Jonathan actually spoke at the ceremony at the hospital they did a slideshow and then Jonathan spoke and then made a spoke and whenever we met that Tuesday night it was I don't know like I was kind of nervous about it but you know I was trying to be the strong one like oh this is gonna be fine and honestly like after the first few minutes of us walking in and the awkwardness of hey how are you finally gonna meet face to face it was like we've been friends forever but it was the most amazing feeling to see this little boy who now has you know our son's heart beating in and he still has life and that was just something you know really really really special.
So I told Holly he didn't really dawn on me until we were driving over from Atlanta you know that I'm gonna hold a child in the same heart that I fed you know night and day you know we always had Elle always had John Clark you know how you handle twins and you know really really hit home that doesn't mean we'll do that you know so you didn't think you were gonna be able to do for a long time. You know nothing was wrong with John Clark's heart he I mean he had a perfectly good heart you know so it's just to know that he was able to give life. A couple people were so nice that they actually gave us a build-a-bear I guess the day after the surgery and they have recorded John Clark's heart beat and then put it in a build-a-bear so we actually have that and we actually took it and made some copies of it and now both of our daughters have a little build-a-bear with one of his ones he's on it with his heart beat so you know we've got that to listen to it and tell me one too but the AMC had done a what was it they did. Oh yeah they printed out actually Davis had an echo the morning of us being there on April the CS and so they printed out a little ultrasound picture of the echo and put it in a little frame and it says John Clark Perry soulmate food Davis Tucker Boswell so wow it was just good to actually see them face to face and get to hug their neck and just you know that big smile Davis is that you know brightens our day a lot of time just by seeing him I'm so happy you know that was just that that meant a lot.
That was a nice gift to us. Yeah I'm looking at you guys picture I'm looking at John Clark's picture I'm looking at little Davis you guys are pretty tough so so tell us kind of where you guys are when it comes to donation when it comes to where you are as a little family in your life journey. Well we're a little band printed up that's got John Clark's name on it and then Joshua won nine I'm sure you're probably seeing that some of the things you've read about us that's what the nurses at St. Francis have put on this monitor in his room so we've got those and then on inside the bracelet that says donate life and yeah that's that's where Holly and I are as we want to promote John Clark and donate life and you know use his story to you know we said a long time ago when we were going through the process and even after that if somebody had prayed for John Clark they never prayed for him and never prayed for him in their life or had kind of stepped away from the Lord and just brought him back then it was worth it and we've already seen his story bring people to the Lord I went on on a men's retreat and I was actually a doctor there that he came up to me and he said after what I said I was a doctor on your son except for what I saw on that screen when they did a CAT scan and knowing what was going on and seeing you here is he said that's that's right to my faith a lot you know that's the Lord put this guy on a retreat with me that probably would have never met any other time you know there's I've told people that when something like this happens you can you can go two ways you can either get really deep and dark and depressed or you can you know even every bad situation has positive outcomes and I and I are focusing on those and will continue to focus on those and try to promote his story and and organ donation.
Because like I said multiple times before you know you don't need your organs in heaven so there's I mean if you can help somebody else's life and give them more time with their family than they would have had you not you know just had a donate then something you should do. Well I think John Clark would be proud of his parents you guys were amazing and I have one other tidbit that I wanted to bring up in your stories I read that Davis isn't Auburn but you think that a Jersey maybe that that stated you know his Louisiana roots right on. Yeah we have something left about the other following days and we found out they were from Auburn and I was just joking highly I was sure they were not Auburn fans. Surely not.
Holly pulled a picture up and actually was something really nice. The Auburn football team had been visiting the hospital and they came into some pictures with Davis which I thought was really nice. I made late hit me I was like whenever we meet them we've got to get a shirt and the first thing that popped in my mind was you know my heart bleeds purple and gold. Yes.
And it was great to be able to give them I gave them that shirt at the hospital which is in Auburn the actual Auburn nursing school had a ton of nurses there in their Auburn uniform. I mean it was the mayor was there I mean there was a lot of Auburn blood there and when I broke out that shirt they all had a pretty good laugh. That's amazing you guys are just a neat couple and we will help you to tell John Clark's story a hero at six months old saved two lives in Crable. And our family support segment today we are talking about donor family quilts so if you've been to a lope event like the donor family picnic then you'll see these beautiful quilts there's a lot of them now.
Yeah. We have it's one of our highlights of our donor family picnic. Right. You can go into a room and see each and everyone's quilt square and the quilt squares themselves are so amazing they tell that person's story you know basically in a square where you can have something very personal.
Yeah. You know the different donors. They mean so much but how did this all get started so our historian if you will on this podcast Miss Sally has those details it's really a neat story. Well you know it was back in the early 90s that laid by the name of Maggie Kooligan was in the northeastern part of the United States and she had was raising six children and one of her daughters Katie was a donor.
And during this time however of Maggie raising her family she would make a quilt a story quilt if you will for her children's teachers or family of friends or for a wedding or baby gift but she called them patches of love. Well in 1995 Maggie became the founding chair of the National Doner Family Council for the National Kidney Foundation and the Kidney Foundation is where we took many of our now guidelines that we used to put together our donor family services and what she did was she proposed to them look you know I've done these quilts for a while and I would like to propose that we do this for our donor families and to recognize what their loved one has done to help others. And so they said yes and so this is how it all came about. So in 1995 the quilts were starting to be put together for the National Kidney Foundation and then as the other OPOs looked around at this they thought wow this is a great idea you know a way to honor our donor families and make it specific to each area where they are located.
And so that's how ours got started and I think the first quilt panel was for us was in 1999 and since then we now have 15 quilt panels and as you know as you just mentioned a lot of squares with a lot of different information and we also ask families to submit their own plans. And so we also ask families to submit a narrative you know telling us a little bit more what they'd like to know then we put this into a scrapbook which all this is going to be changing shortly here. However for those of you who may have submitted a quilt square many years ago and you did not submit a story we really would like for you to do so. You've probably seen our quilts on the previous LOPA website but whenever you have looked now recently we've changed the website and there's going to be a whole new section devoted to the donor family quilts.
So in the meantime we're going to have this up and coming on the website our new fancy LOPA website. So in the meantime if they want to get in touch with you about quilts adding a quilt. First of all how does is there any time taken out of the website? Well if you're not a member of the website you can go to the website there'll be a section under stories where you can submit your story.
And we really encourage people we have information we send out in writing we'll have much more information available once everything is put on to the site. So we really want people to think about it. So in the meantime if they want to get in touch with you about quilts adding a quilt. First of all how does is there any time table that takes place?
Yeah people ask that a lot because there are a couple years out and they never did it. No time frame whatsoever I mean it can be six months it can be six years as you well know Libby my co-worker. That she took her seven years I believe it was before she finally decided okay this is what I can do and I think now she has two quilts honoring Justin. So quilts where is honoring Justin.
So in the meantime for those that want to maybe they're thinking about it maybe they didn't do it up until this point. Where can they find information about this. They can contact us at family services at lopa.org. Yeah you can always use our little hotline which is 504-648-3477 you may say it goes like 504-648-3477 and then always the info at lopa.org will get that information where it needs to be.
But if you haven't sat with a family who has walked you through everything that's on a quilt square. That is just incredible because we just recently had a Lopa donor family picnic and from the colors that are chosen to the material that's used to the inscription that's on there to what's monogram. It's just so touching and it really tells the story of that hero. It's so powerful and so sometimes that's why the family say it takes us a while because we want to be perfect and it's great and stuff.
We have these wonderful people who can help walk you through. And also as the website is finished up with quilts and everything there will be a section where folks can make comments. Hi, Tackford donation. I love it.
Well, thank you, Sally. You're welcome. And we just love the quilts. It's amazing.
And so if you want to join in do so today. It is now time to honor a hero. Today we're going to talk about hero from our website, Dustin Gordon. Yes, Sally.
Dustin was an amazing man. He was a country boy that lived life to the fullest. He made the most of his short time on earth. He had the heart of gold and we give the shirt off his back to anyone in need.
He was strong in his beliefs and didn't know a stranger. He was always there for anyone in need. He was a hardworking man that was devoted to his family. He was funny and loved to make everyone laugh as he was always smiling.
He was wise beyond his ears and was always full of good advice. He was moralistic and spiritual. He always gave more than he received. There was no other way to say it.
He was just a good person in love by so many. His two children and his family were his life and every step he took was for them. Right. That is hero Dustin Gordon.
You can see his picture Great Smile, Good Hat. You can see his picture. You can read more about Dustin on our website, Lopa.org. Click on the Heroes tab.
And now we've paused and say thank you to Dustin for the gift of life. And our question and answer segment is a question that we get quite often. What can I do to get involved? And that's easy, isn't it, Joey?
Sally, it's as simple as telling your story. Yes. We have a great example. Sue and Tony Miller.
They are some little love birds who will tell their story to one person, to ten people. Anybody out there in their church, it doesn't matter. They are spreading awareness and they called into this podcast, which we love and we're sharing that audio now. Yes.
Hello, everyone. Michael Kinney, Donna back in March of 2003. She was the Kinney recipient. So we just want to take on the importance of organ and tissue donation because it means so much.
Because back in 2003, I was Kinney, Donna, amen. Hi, everybody. I'm happy. I'm glad to speak with you all this afternoon.
I'm Sue Allen Miller once again, I should say. And I am a kidney recipient. We are celebrating 13 years of successful kidney transplantation on March 24th. And we were celebrating 10 years of happy marital bliss on March 25th of this year.
And I should say again, happy. And I am just really excited about organ and tissue donation because it has blessed and enhanced my life so much. And to 1992, when I was diagnosed with end stage renal failure, I became very depressed and very discouraged as usual as most of most people feel in that situation. And my very dear friend of more than 18 years, we met in church, most of us are ministers, and we became very, very close.
And he came over to visit one day during my depression. And when I explained to him that I was told by the Kinney coordinator that I would become a candidate for a kidney transplant. But some people died while waiting. It would take three to five years and some people died while waiting.
So that's why I was very depressed. But the angel that God sent in my life came to rescue me by way of Antonio Miller. And I thank God that the transplant has been a success and the marriage has been great. I thank you for this time and I encourage everyone.
Please consider becoming a registered organ and tissue donor. Allow someone the opportunity that you have had in life to live a happy life and have a great quality of life. Please consider donate life today. We are joined together in love, marriage and kidney.
Just love me some Sue and Tony they're so awesome. If you if you missed it 10 year wedding anniversary, they're celebrating this year and 13 year transplants anniversary. Elori 13 years what a couple it's so invigorating listening to them, especially the way they spread awareness and they use their anniversary to spread donor awareness. It's a great thing to have them on board every year.
And we want you to call in and tell us your story. We'd love to hear from you. Please call us 5046483477. Another episode of the gifted life in the books guys do want to thank Caitlin King of 225 Communications and Dr.
James Bruce are of LSU for doing such a great job adopting Loba increasing our donor registry and increasing awareness. It's really the gift that keeps on getting. And we want to thank John Clark's parents, Jonathan and Holly for sharing his story and especially the story about them meeting with Davis and his family. And a special thanks to Sue and Tony Miller for sharing their story with us.
Yes, we love when folks get involved in incredible podcasts. Please share this and go out and do something that you don't normally do to help make life happen.