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, where your hosts, I'm Laurie Steele. I'm Joey Boudreau. I'm Sarah Blakemore.
And today, we'll wait to hear what's coming up. Yes, we'll be talking to two guys who live many states of port and have come together at the One Impactful Conversation. Amazing. And we're going to talk about mindfulness and how to use it in a different way.
All that more right here, the Gifted Life, hang on tight. Here on the Gifted Life Podcast, we are excited to introduce you to some new friends that we've gotten to know over the last couple of weeks, and we're excited to tell you about this story. So we have Mark, Scott, and his wife, Lynn. Hi, guys.
Hello, Laurie. And where are you guys joining us from? We're in Clover, Wisconsin, right in the middle of the state, basically. Holy smokes.
So I'm in Louisiana, and we have Hugh Smith. Hey, Hugh. Hello. Where are you, man?
I'm in that. It's Louisiana. So that's a little far apart, guys. Little far apart.
How many miles would you say, Mark? Right around, well, I'd like about 1,457. Wow. See how they get to know this stuff?
Interesting. I have a point that I'm getting to. So you guys are miles apart, states apart. There was a chance encounter.
Hugh, you want to walk us through what was happening in Natchitish, Louisiana, when you ran across this amazing couple? Well, I can tell you, it kind of started out. I had gotten off of work, and we had just had a microbrewery built here in Natchitish, and it had been open probably about eight or nine months, I guess. And I usually would go in, you know, the two owners of the place, Justin Kraus and Kay Gentry are dear, dear friends of mine, and they're kind of like brothers to me, actually.
And I would go in and have a couple of beers after work and stuff, because I only live about 10 minutes from the place. But this particular day I went in, and this guy was sitting up at the bar, and so I went up there and ordered me a beer, and we kind of got to talking, and it was really kind of funny. I had, I guess I'd been there probably about an hour, hour and a half, I guess, and we had talked about several things. And after my second beer, I got up to leave, and I looked over at Mark, and I told Mark, I said, well, I'm going to hook up to my girlfriend, and he said, well, he said, wait a minute.
He said, I really enjoyed our conversation. And he said, I'll buy you another beer if you stay. And I said, no, I said, you don't, you don't quite understand what I'm saying. I said, I have to go home and hook up to my machine.
And he looked at me kind of funny, and he said, machine, what machine? And I said, well, I'm in stage by kidney failure, and I have to go home and do my dialysis treatment. And when I told him that, the look on his face was priceless. And he looked at me and he said, well, wait a minute.
He said, if you're in stage by kidney failure, what the hell are you doing in here drinking? And I said, well, my doctor told me that I couldn't make this any worse. So I'm going to be happy and live my life. And he said, well, he said, I tell you what, he said before you go, he said, you know, I'm not, he said, I've often thought about being a kidney donor.
And he said, I'll give you one of my kidneys. And I said, yeah, right. That's the beer told. You know, I thought he might say, if I had a nickel for every time somebody told me they'd give me a kidney, I'd be rich right now.
And there the story grew without you thinking. I have to honestly say that Mark was definitely a God's end. There's no doubt. So Mark and Lynn, I'm going to ask you how you ended up at this brewery in Louisiana and just a little background on Mark.
I learned about Mark from Bill Conner. He's been on this podcast before. He bi-sickle from Wisconsin to Louisiana to hear his daughter's heart beating in her recipient's chest on Father's Day 2017, which was a pretty powerful story. So he said, I learned about this guy named Mark into extreme sports, retired, and he wants to do a good thing for donation.
And I was like, I like him already. And then that's how Mark and I got to talk and talk about your trek to Louisiana and meeting you. Tell us your side. Lynn and I both retired about three years ago.
And along with that, a friend of mine connected me with the cranberry farmer up here in Wisconsin. And this friend of mine and I were mountain bikers together. We did a lot of riding together. And the farmer was a cranberry farmer.
And he took out about five acres of cranberries and put in hops a few years ago. And he needed kind of a hard time hop salesman. And I came to the sales background. And so we decided as long as we're driving around the country and our RV, our travel trader, and we usually stop at microbrewers anyway.
So we stop at microbrewers along our route when it's convenient and works out. And we talk to the brewer and I try to get them interested in the hops of the farmer up here. So I happen to be in cane river brewing and did my little sales pitch with the brewer and look over there and there's this guy just sitting there. So hell, I'm not start talking to him.
A couple of minutes later, Lynn came in and introduced you to Lynn. And I think you kind of explained it after that. It's kind of just what happened. And Lynn, how did you feel that you're sitting at a brewery, you're hanging out and your husband just offers his kidney to a perfect stranger?
Hey, we both felt an affinity for Hugh right off the bat. But when Mark said that, I looked to the side at him and I thought to myself, wow, that's a really big commitment. But I didn't say anything. So if I can ask Hugh, you talk about dating or going meet your girlfriend.
So if you can tell our listeners just how long you had to see this girlfriend of yours. What's her name? Her name is Amita. So how long have you been seeing her and what brought you to you two guys to date?
I actually started on my dalasist treatments back in October of 2019. I mean, 2019. And I've been doing them every night since I have started out an eight hour treatment. And now it's increased to 10 hours.
The doctor felt like that the solution that goes into my body would do a lot better to stay in there just a little longer. So I think the middle of last year is when he increased my treatments for eight hours to see him. And I've been doing them every since. And now it's just a believe it or not, you know, I hook up every night to my machine here at the house about eight, eight, 30.
And my treatments are usually over around seven, 30 or a quarter to eight in the morning. And once I get up every morning, I look for my machine. I shut the machine down. I go drink my coffee and, you know, begin my day and pretty much do whatever I want to do, whatever I want to do it as much as I want to do it.
So, you know, really and truly this period to nail dialysis is it's probably the best way of treatment for me because it really fits my lifestyle as, you know, what I like to do and stuff. And I'm able to do all of that. And I'd have to, you know, the only thing that I guess I had that I do regret is I don't have a social life just because, you know, I have to come home and hook up every night to this machine. But on the flip side to that, I realize that's what's keeping me alive.
And now that I've been put back on the active transplant list, they're looking for me a donor as we speak. So hopefully I'll be getting a call any day that they owe me another donor. So tell me a little bit about that part. So, you know, of course you're on paratinial dialysis and you say, you know, you're dating, we like to say in the transplant world, you married to it, you know, and because it's pretty much, yes.
Right. And so, you know, you're, you know, your daily life, you know, it does change, so to speak, because you have to be, you know, somewhere near, it's not like you can just pick up and go. And so tell me about, you know, transitioning, I guess your mindset from the paratinial dialysis to what got you, you know, when did you learn about a potential organ donation? That would be an option for you.
Honestly, let's see, when I first started going to DCI, which is my dialysis clinic in Shreveport, and I went to, I went to LSU and that's where my doctors were and stuff. And I guess it was about a year ago that I actually learned about dialysis. I really didn't even know what dialysis was, you know, and so I got them to explain to me the two types of dialysis, which was the hemodialysis and the paratinial. And of course, the paratinial fit me the best and that's why I chose it.
And honestly, I would recommend it to anyone because if I can do it, anybody can do it. I mean, first of all, you have a machine that is really self-explanatory. I mean, it takes you and walks you through and it even talks to you. So that's the great thing.
You know, it tells you, you know, exactly what to do, each step. And if you miss a step, it'll go back and tell you, hey, you didn't do this right. We got to take this, you know, you got to take these steps, especially keeping everything sterile and clean and stuff like that. So, but I didn't, I didn't really know anything about donation until I met Mark, you know, I mean, I had had several friends of mine or, you know, acquaintances or whatever say they would give me a kidney, but, you know, honestly kind of like what Mark said, I don't think, you know, when it came right down to it, I don't know that they would go through with the actual procedure.
And when Mark, you know, the thing that sold me on Mark and I'm not trying to embarrass him or anything, but, you know, after I left that evening, honestly, I never expected to hear from him again. You know, I thought he was just another acquaintance in a bar and, you know, leave it at that. But I woke up the next morning and I had gotten a text message from him and he said, don't forget to send me the information of your coordinator so that I can contact her because I want to talk to her. And so I sent him my coordinator's information and he contacted her right away and they wound up visiting for about an hour and then come to find out that my hospital did not reciprocate with theirs.
And then this is where I absolutely fell in love with Mark. He went above and beyond. He went to the CEO of the National Kidney Foundation. I mean, he went straight to the top and told this guy, he said, you know, he said, look, I have a perfectly good kidney.
I want to give it to this guy in Louisiana and they're telling me I can't do it. So who do I need to talk to? Well, the guy looks up on his computer and put us in contact with the University Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi. That's where we've been going and that's where I'm going to have my transplant.
I love it. I love the story and Mark, I want to bring you in. I want to hear your side of it as well. But before we get to that, Hugh, can you tell us what doctors believe led to your kidney failure and how you got to where you are?
Honestly, I had a back when I was younger, about 27 years old. I had gone in for, you know, I had a case where I had a real bad headache one day and so I went home and I took some medicine from my headache and three hours later, this medicine hasn't phased my headache or whatever. So at the time I had my XY take me to the emergency room and come to find out they ran a bunch of tests on me or whatever and I had high blood pressure and my blood pressure was 200 over 180 that night. And the doctor looked at me and said he couldn't believe I wouldn't be it that I hadn't had still gone already.
I said, well, I'm not quite ready to check out yet. But through the tests that they ran, my creatinine was a little bit high, which at the time I had no idea what creatinine was and my doctor came to me a day or so later and he asked me had I ever had kidney problems. And I told him no, not exactly. I said, why do you ask?
And he said, well, some of those tests that we ran, he said your creatinine came back kind of high and I said, well, what's high? And he said, well, yours is two and a half. And I said, well, two and a half. I said, that doesn't sound very high to me.
I said, well, what's the normal? And he said, the normal is 0.05. And I said, oh, okay, well, I said, as far as I know, you know, I've never had any kidney problems, but you know, I guess I'll, you know, I'll check into it and see. Well, come to find out what it caused at all.
You know, I was a jockey for 17 years and I used to have real bad headaches and body aches, you know, from riding and stuff like that. And I used to take excessive amounts of ibuprofen back when I was younger. And so the ibuprofen is actually what damaged my kidneys from what they came to find out. Okay, well, we appreciate you sharing such a great storyteller mark.
You're right about that. And when you talk and you talk to people that Marcus come across such a great guy, like follows through. And then you're from Hugh with you. He said, you guys will be lifelong friends.
So you met this guy. You met this guy in a brewery. He said, I need a kidney. And you said, I'll give you one of mine.
What prompt did you do that? And then what actions did you take to get where we are? Well, a sister in law of mine had donated a kidney about 13 years ago. And she had donated to old high school friend and, and from being around, I mean, I, she talked about, you know, kidney, don't, don't need her kidney.
And we never really got into it. I really wasn't. I didn't have much interest in learning much more about her, except that she was doing fine. So I guess when he told me that his kidneys were inferior and he was immunizing when I mind, you know, understood that a person can live on one kidney because I'd seen my sister in London.
And I guess that's what really prompted me not to even think about it knowing that I could live through it. And so I really didn't understand when I was committing to it at all. And I started learning as much as I could about kidney donation. And we have three grown boys and after we got along in this process quite a bit, we decided to sit down and tell them what I was planning on doing.
And all the sun and I are pretty active in doing sports, specifically endurance sports, where we'll go out in the middle of winter and ride bike or see or walk like 150, 60 miles over a weekend. Me too, Mark. Kidding. I said, yeah, me too, bud.
Of course. I only bring that up because I was all the sense of, well, are you going to be able to do this stuff anymore? You know, you've been doing it. I'm older, but I still do it.
And I didn't have that question. I didn't know if I could or not. So that prompted me to kind of cross the last T, so to speak. And I did some Google searching and found a woman named Tracy Hewlett, who actually was from Madison, Wisconsin, which is rather interesting.
And she had donated kidney and she was an ultra marathoner. She wondered the same questions. And she decided after she found out that she could return, she put together a website called Kidding Donor Athletes. And I found her website, talked to her, found out that a lot of endurance athletes are just people in general that are pretty active.
And they told a story about their kidney donation and how they're getting back into their physical activity, whatever that might be. So that gave me the confidence that I could really go through with this. I mean, I had full intentions of doing it either way. I just felt that I couldn't commit to you and then back out because of something like that.
I mean, I just felt that it was something that needed to be done. A lot had to do with my age. I'm a little bit older and my life's been good. So if I had to bust it up my body a few times doing different things, but I felt that there was still a part or two that was so good.
You know, you're not that. You're not that. That's really what kind of transpired. And the more I learned, the more I learned, the more I learned, I both we just started learning so much.
And that's when we decided to go public with that, so to speak, I talked to you about it, asked him if he'd be okay with it. And he was. And so we're just trying to tell our story. And so Lynn, what was your thinking?
So he mentions this one night. Did you know he was going to follow up? Did you know that we were going to get to where we are today? What were your thoughts?
Oh, I knew right away that, I mean, he told he would give a kidney and I knew that he meant it. And there was no question in his mind. I know people have asked me when they hear our story, well, how did you feel about that? And I think again, because of our sister-in-law's experience, we knew it was entirely feasible and didn't need to negatively impact the life and the lifestyle of the donor.
And it's just something, the more we learned, the more it was kind of a no-brainer. Well, and that's what led to my decision to pursue whether I was eligible to be a donor as well as, hey, if you're medically able to be a donor, why not? Y'all are some good humans. I love this story.
All right, so Mark, you mentioned it to you. You follow up the next day. You learn, you do your research and do you follow through? Yes, my surgery was actually September 30th.
This is September 30th through kind of a long story. But when I learned that he was registered at a facility in Shreveport and I did talk to his coordinator at length and I found out that I'd have to come down for blood work. I had an evaluation, the surgery, hang around after the surgery. I started thinking about, wow, I'm going to be like almost living down there.
Which, okay, okay, I started thinking, well, okay, I did talk him into considering maybe I could do my blood work up here. But then I started thinking, well, I'm going to be going down a lot and I like to ride bikes longer since this is what I like to do. So I thought, well, I'm going to be doing this. One of these trips, I'm going to be riding my bike down.
And I thought, it'd be kind of fun to follow the Mississippi River. Yeah, it's beautiful. Then we've done this before and some other trips and Lynn does a great job with ground support. I do my thing and we get up for lunch or maybe in the evening for dinner and we hang out.
So we just do the next thing the next day. So I had this ride figured out, we're just going to do it on our own. And then the more I learned, I realized I'd be going to drive and basically ride through Madison, Wisconsin, which is one of the best transplant facilities in the country. And I started investigating that and realized that I just thought this was all connected into one big network to be honest with you.
And I realized they aren't. It's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's hard to be their ships. You got, they're all selling forwards, but each dealer does its own thing. So I asked you, if you would mind going to Jackson because Jackson is part of the National Kidney Registry.
And if that happened, then if you got registered there, I could, this is what I learned from Madison, that I could do all my surgery up here and give you a voucher and call it a voucher method or voucher system. So I could be completely independent on my surgery date and do everything up here in Madison. And the biggest thing that scared me wasn't the surgery. It was what if there's something afterwards and there's some kind of complications.
I didn't want to be tied to a facility in tree part. Nothing in tree part. I certainly love it, but it's a long way from Wisconsin. So one that I could do everything in Madison really, really helped me mentally and he was willing to go to Jackson.
So I did my surgery September 30th. I couldn't actually went to the best fit on the registry. And that's another point when I learned about the voucher. You know, there was a lot of hope that he and I would be a perfect match, but I knew the odds were slim.
When I learned that to the voucher system, my kid would go to the best fit. And when he needed his kid, he was ready, he'd get the best fit. And from the recipients point of view, I think that's, that's something that's really important to be noted because you're talking about rejection and all those kind of things. It just makes so much sense.
So we did that. My kid, he went to New York. I do not know who received my kidney. Maybe never will, but that allowed him to move up on the list and he'll be getting just getting shortly.
Now, Hugh, were you supposed to already have a new kidney and then something called COVID data, not in the way? Yes. I was, I was actually supposed to have my transplant surgery. They had found me a donor.
They told me that it was a hundred percent match. I was actually supposed to have my transplant on December the 2nd. And I got within 10 days of my surgery day and my mother, bless her heart. She got the COVID virus.
And you know, I've lived with my mom and dad now for almost 50 years. And being that I lived in the same house with him and really and truly, it was all kind of odd. My aunt came over the day that my mother got the virus and she wasn't feeling good. And I think she was just kind of scared because my mom is all she's got right now.
It's her baby sister. And she came over to tell mom she wasn't feeling good. Of course, when she did that, she gave the virus to mama. Mama got it.
And the next day, I mean, it was kind of funny, but well, I say funny, but it was kind of odd because within the hour, mom had a headache. And the next day, she was in bed with body aches, the whole nine yards for 10 days. And so I just kind of vacated my bedroom and closed the door and told everybody to stay away from me. Don't cut me in here.
You know, just keep your distance from me because I have a transplant to go to and I'm going to do it. And so after about seven or eight days, my mom, you know, she told me that I really needed to call my coordinator and I wasn't going to call my coordinator at all. I was going to go through with this transplant from Heller Highwater. And mom said, well, you better call her and tell them that you've been exposed because, you know, what are you going to do when you get to the hospital?
Because you know that they're going to give you a COVID test before they do surgery. And then what are you going to tell them when it comes back positive? Well, I said, you know, I don't have any symptoms. So I don't think I've got it.
I'm going to be just fine. Well, as it turned out, I did finally go get a test. It came back positive and I had a touch of it. So therefore I had to release my donor.
And I think for about maybe a month and a half, I was inactive on the list because I had to get two negative tests before they could put me back on the list. And I finally got my second negative test. And this was back on January 5th or 6th, I believe. And after that, I got my facts to my test results to my coordinator.
And then a week later, I went to Jackson and met with my coordinator team and they evaluated the situation. And now I am back active on the list. And like I said, in the beginning, they're looking for me a donor right now. So hopefully we'll get a call any day now and they'll tell us they found me another kid.
And then they also reassured me that not to worry because they found me that first donor. And they said it would not, you know, it would not be a positive. There'll be plenty of donors and it shouldn't be that hard to find me another one. So just be patient and, you know, it's in God's hands and whatever he has in store, then that's what I did.
Yeah. And Hugh, so, and I'll kind of bounce back to Mark for just a second. So, you know, you talked about being able to get put back on the list, but not only are you getting put back on the list. And this is a list of 80 or so thousand people nationwide.
Yes. Right. So, so, but with this voucher, it puts you at the top of the list. Am I right?
I am at the top of the list and I get the next available kidney. And like I said, from day one, Mark and Lillian will always, no matter what happens from here on out, no matter what happens, they will always be a part of our family. We are going to be family no matter what. Oh, that's sweet.
Len, you mentioned thinking about being a living donor yourself. Where are you in that process? Well, it's been a long process and it's been interesting because my dates and hues had started intersecting in a couple of places. So we were like, Oh, well, maybe I'll be a donor.
Nice. Oh, yeah. Wow. So I went along with Mark to the UW when he had his full day evaluation on July 24th.
And as he mentioned, he had done a lot of research and shared all that information with me. So I think we were probably very well prepared and pretty knowledgeable about what the whole thing entailed. And as I sat through the full day evaluation with him, I knew that that was something I wanted to explore for myself because there didn't seem to be any good reason not to. And but we needed to wait until Mark had his surgery.
So we weren't crossing lines that way. And we would be each other's caregivers and needed to make sure our timelines worked for that. So I initiated the process as far as signing up mid August. And Mark's surgery was September 30th.
I had my full day evaluation on October 24th. I was put on the registry active on the registry on November 13th. My coordinator said I will be calling you within the week. And about four days later, at the beginning of the next week, I did get a call from my coordinator.
It wasn't the call I wanted to get because she told me that the UW was suspending their living donor processes until February 1st due to COVID. So that was a disappointment. But it's particularly hard on individuals like donor recipients to be exposed to something like the COVID virus because their immune systems are suppressed to avoid rejection. So I understood that that was necessary.
So with Christmas basically being canceled as far as family gatherings and the winter endurance events that Mark typically participates in December and the end of January were also canceled, we decided to run away from winter in Wisconsin and headed to the Atlantic coast. And we were in Florida in January and I got a call from my coordinator and she said we're starting up again. You still want to be considered for donation and I said absolutely. So she said great, I'll put you back on the registry.
I'll talk to you as soon as we have a match. In the meantime, Mark had come down with a few symptoms. We thought maybe he was just kind of worn out. A couple weeks later, I had the same symptoms.
They were doing free COVID testing very close to where we were staying in Florida. So we both went for a test. He was negative. I was positive.
In the meantime, my coordinator called back and said we have a match for you. Surgery will be February 24th. You're part of a three person chain, three donors, three recipients, three surgeons. Oh, and by the way, have you been exposed to COVID or been around anybody with COVID?
And I said, well, actually, I just had a positive COVID test on January 17th. She told me that they have to wait months following a negative test result. So I was tested again on January 23rd, both a rapid test and a longer developing test. Both of those were negative.
So I am back on the registry, live on the registry with the understanding that my surgery can't take place before March 24th, which actually is to the registry's benefit because it gives them a nice long timeline to either find a recipient that has high sensitivities, for which I would be an appropriate match or to set up a chain of multiple transplants. So I went and got my eight miles of blood again, Monday. Just waiting now to hear from my coordinator again, as far as a definite date for my surgery. I have to say, Lynn, listening to you and Mark, both your altruism and your persistence in seeing this through is inspiring.
It really is. There's stories not done, though, Jamie. I know, I know it's not. And I wanted to just touch on the voucher program just for a second.
That wasn't an option a few years ago. If someone wanted to donate to someone else, even the kidney pair donation thing is still basically in its infancy as far as transportation goes. And so if you wanted to donate to someone and you weren't a good match, it was pretty much it. Unfortunately, that's where everything stopped and everyone went on their separate ways.
And of course, you looking Mark into this further with the National Kidney Foundation or National Kidney Registry and pursuing further, not saying, taking Noah as an answer and looking into the voucher system. And it's just a testament to you. I just want to say that it's amazing. And the voucher system now allowing you to remain at the top of the list as opposed to getting kicked back to the bottom or having to wait years is really, that's something that works.
And it's really nice to promote altruism and to see that when someone wants to donate, even though it's not a direct link, indirectly, it makes a huge impact. Yes. And it's kind of funny. I got led to the voucher system two different ways, looking at hindsight.
I mentioned Tracy Hewlett from Can You Do Under Athletes who I had talked to. And about the same time I was talking to Tracy's when I decided to do this bike ride and make it, you know, after he went and I talked and make it more of a national thing. And I went to the National Kidney Registry's website because it seemed like that was a site where I was getting the most information that specific site. So I contacted them, I sent them an email and said, look, I told what I was doing.
And I said, I want to do this ride. And I want to promote. When I found out that 13 people die every day, it just affected me. And so I talked to them and they referred me to Ned Brooks from at the time was called Donor to Donor, but now it's called National Kidney Dornational Organization.
And Tracy referred me to Ned as well. And as soon as I got on the phone and started talking to Ned, he's the one who really said you need to do about her because he's a living donor himself just like Tracy, just like I am and Lynn's going to be. And he knew everything about the about-term. And he just was so good with me and explained it all and it just makes so much sense.
So I wanted to make sure that there's people know there's many sites out there, you can get a lot of information. And this, when Lynn and I realized that this field is changing almost monthly, definitely yearly. And most people don't really think, most people think you have to be a match, that all these things have changed so much in just two years. I just want to say that we just stop the need to make this public.
And that's all I learned about you guys. And I was learning from your story, talking to you, talking to you, Mark as well. And so not only did you meet a stranger and say, Hey, I want to help and follow through with it, but you're trying to help make life happen for other folks across the country, which is just incredible. So you mentioned the bike rides, let's give them some details where they can find.
I want to have you guys back on the podcast and follow the story. We're just sitting here in awe of what has transpired between Wisconsin and Louisiana and all of you on the call today. So tell us about the bike ride, tell us some dates that you know what you know right now and where we can find more. Well, I guess the bike ride started is just something that I was going to do because I like to ride bike.
But you know, Lyn and I kind of like it. We've learned to enjoy that. But when I want to make a public, I want to get word out, but it's really twofold. It's sharing information and making this whole transplant thing known to people that there's definitely a need.
But I also know from my Silent Sports, I call it the Silent Sports Network that I live in, basically in cross-country skiing, Chameleon kayak and all the things that I've done in my whole life that there are millions of people that are physically able to donate to kidney. And we're not talking about Olympians that you know, or high-level athletes that are you know, basketball pros or anything. We're talking about the average, average weekend warrior or the average person ever you know, does races and you know, does things just, does citizen racer. And I want to bust into that community.
And so that's what I'm trying to do not, you know, not only create awareness, but to actually find owners. So you're hopping on a bike in Wisconsin and you're going to come see us here in Louisiana? Yes, we decided to leave April 24th from Madison because I'm a big, I believe, daughter to her riding. So I wanted to ride my bike from our front door to who's front door.
So my surgery was September 30th, which was Wednesday. And I told my coordinator that I wanted to ride my bike down on the weekend from Clover, where I lived in Madison, which is 150 miles. And they said, well, if you do that, we're not going to do surgery on you on Wednesday because we can't take a kidney out of somebody that's just ridden 150 miles. You might be dehydrated.
You know, we're not going to do that. I said, so I'll do it the weekend before. And I said, okay, so we left from our house. And I'm also inviting everybody, anybody actually get it once arrived with me, any portion of the ride.
So I put the word out and when we had, I don't know, 15, 20 people here, I seven year old granddaughter, my 11 year old grandson, took off with me, my wife, some friends and their 10 year old daughter. And everybody just rode a distance after comfortable with. So my granddaughter only rode a mile and rode back home with my wife. And my grandson went 20 miles.
And I had a friend that went 30 miles. I had two people that rode the whole thing with me. One was Bill Connor that you mentioned. So we got from my house to the front door of the hospital and we stopped the ride, donate life was there to help us promote it.
And April 24th, we're going to start from the hospital door again. And then take off, we're going to go from Wisconsin from Madison to the Duke Iowa to the Mississippi River. And then I've got a route on my website that has a whole route on it. And I'm inviting anybody along the route to ride any portion of the ride with me.
My plan is to based on the ride we did in September, my plan worked out pretty good was just in the morning. We'll ride at a pace that like a six or seven year old can handle because that's what my granddaughter did. And we'll do that for the first hour or so. And then after that, I got to check it up and I'm going to be riding a pace where I can cover about 75 miles per day.
This is my goal. And we're just going to make our way all the way down. We don't have anything set because we don't know what's going to happen with the weather or the breakdown or anything like that. But I do know we're starting April 24th and we're going to end up at Hughes House.
That's all I can tell you right now. Parte, how are you? Absolutely. And I do want to add, you know, me being on this voucher program, I want everyone to know that I am going to be because of Mark and this and this particular program.
I'm going to be the first recipient of a kidney on this voucher program in Jackson, Mississippi. So in the state of Mississippi, I guess so I'm going to be the prodigal son. Oh, I love the personalities on the call today. Mark, we want to follow you and help support you on your ride.
He want to follow your story. So tell us where this information can be found online. I know you're on social media. You have a website.
Walk us through that. Yeah, so we started the first of all, I started a Facebook page and it's called the Oregon Trail, not Oregon, like the state, but Oregon, like a kidney. I mean, that's how I remember it. It's pretty clever.
The Oregon Trail and it's just labeled a kidney donation story. And then I decided I needed a website because I need to have I just needed a website. So somebody way back when decided that they would claim the rights of the Oregon Trail. So I couldn't take that.
So the website is www.the Oregon Trail, H M for you, mark that wordpress.com. Clever. I love it. Well, we're going to be following your story and we'll be looking forward to you visiting Louisiana.
Hugh, please keep us up to date on your story. And we hope to regroup here on the get to life. Thank y'all so much. Absolutely.
Thank y'all. Thank you. Thank you. It's that time here on the get to life podcast, where you take a moment from mental health.
Yes, Sarah, this was actually going to ring true to me. As my wife often tells me that a mindless at time. So I'm going to talk to us a little bit about true mindfulness. Right.
So we've talked about mindfulness and the practice of mindfulness before on the podcast. But I've read this really interesting article about it. So I wanted to talk about a different way we can practice mindfulness. So as we know mindfulness really just means being in the moment and present and tons of research shows that if you practice mindfulness daily, you will show higher levels of happiness and fulfillment.
But most of the research talks about individual mindfulness. Well, I read this really interesting article about how mindfulness isn't just about the individual. It's about your community and helping others as well. So I wanted to talk about that with you.
Okay. Okay. So most research talks about individual mindfulness. And have you heard a lot like you have to help yourself first before you can help others?
Right. What if that's not true on on a plane oxygen thing? Yes, yes. Well, that is true.
And please follow these instructions. But what if that's not true? What if mindfulness and being fulfilled leads with helping others? So what if we are a better service or community?
And that in turn makes us more mindful of who we are and it makes us feel more joy and happiness. So that's kind of what they're talking about. So they gave a little a couple little hints on how we can practice mindfulness in a way that is a service to others and deals more with the future. So one of them is to set goals to create experiences that you look forward to that are service to others.
So maybe that's you know, next month I'm going to reach out to my friend who I haven't spoken to in a while. This is a way of practicing mindfulness because you're being present with something that you're going to look forward to that's going to help someone else. That doesn't sound like I was like, what is she coming at us with? What is that?
But that's something okay? Yeah, it doesn't have to be huge. It doesn't have to be I'm going to plan a service trip to this. That's what I was thinking and I was like, well, let's talk.
Yeah, it can be smaller. I'm going to go volunteer at a not-for-profit organization like LOPA. So that's one way you can practice mindfulness in a community setting. The next is to practice gratitude every day to remind yourself really, you know, the blessings you do have in your life that you are, you've experienced luck and you've something that's been brought into your life that you were grateful for.
So practice that every day. And the last one is to really just practice generosity. That doesn't mean give your money necessarily if you have money and you want to give it. Great.
But that could be giving up your time and energy. That could be smiling at someone. We don't know what anybody else is going through in their day to day, so practicing generosity and sharing with others is a way to practice mindfulness that will bring joint fulfillment. And even through your masks, they can see you smiling with the eyes.
Oh, it's just a smile and I'm having trouble communicating because, you know, you don't know where everybody is with this COVID and you do want to say, hey, I'm your friend, I'm friendly, I want to say hi, I'm smiling into the mask or something like that. They want to scare people, but I'm here right together. We'll get through this. Yeah.
So try in. Yeah, I think it's all about unity and I think it's, you know, being mindful and being present in the moment and everything you do is great. But we could take a step further. We could be mindful of our community of our partners needs of something that's going to make somebody's day a little bit better.
So it's a way to practice mindfulness. I like that. I say that every morning as I drive out the driveway, let me help someone in some way shape or form a sunshine during somebody's jury day. So all right, I like that.
That wasn't too hard. I was kind of nervous too. But those are good. I like that.
It took notes. All right. Maybe you have a topic you want to share to cover, email us info at thegivegoodlife.org. In our question and answer segment, this question came a little differently since we had such a great conversation with Hugh and Mark earlier about the voucher system.
Our sidekick here, Troy, asks, where exactly does someone find out more information about the voucher system? Lori, that question's for you. I like that. We had that same question.
I was learning as I was getting to know Mark and Hugh, but the National Kidney Registry is something that they relied on heavily. And you can find out more at kidney registry.org. Kidney registry.org. That is your one-stop shop.
Okay, great question. If you have a question for us, why don't you give us a call 504648347. In every episode of the Gifted Life, we honor a hero. Today, we honor Cameron Dies.
Cameron is now an angel in heaven and a hero on Earth. He was a donor, and we were informed by Loba that his gifts went to 54 different people. As much as it hurts to not have him here with me, it is such a wonderful feeling knowing he saved so many and is still around in the people's lives he changed. He has a sweet, kind soul that loved making people laugh.
I know he is smiling down on all of us. We love you and miss you so much, Cam. Love, Mommy. And now we pause and say thank you to Cameron for the gift of life.
And that will do it for the Gifted Life Podcast. Thanks for listening and remember you can register as an organ tissue and eye donor anytime, register me.org. Thanks also to Mark Lynn and Hugh for sharing their story of chance and generosity. It's amazing when those three came together and the persistence that Mark and Lynn went through to see that Hugh got his second chance of life.
And we'll continue to follow their story. It's a good one with a Louisiana tie, so we like that too. The best place to find us is at our website. It's the Gifted Life.org.
You can listen to any of our episodes on our website as well as anywhere you like to listen to your podcast, whether it's Google, Apple or Spotify. If you do listen on Apple, please leave us a reading review and subscribe so others can find us on social for Facebook, the Gifted Life Podcast. Please like us there. You can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram at Gifted Life Pod.
But our ask is that you listen and that you share this information so that we can all work together to make life happen. We hope that you go out and do something you would normally do to help us make life happen. Have a good one. This is a production of LOPA, or the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency.
The Gifted Life is hosted by Lori Steele, Joey Boudreau and Sarah Blakemore, our executive producer is Kirsten Heins, producer Isha Long Caraway. Intern is Rebecca Rannam and we are recorded, engineered and mixed in our Covington, Louisiana studio by Troy Perez.