http://www.netnebraska.org/article/news/976379/nebraska-woman-building-support-group-organ-donorsNebraska Woman Building Support Group For Organ Donors
by Ryan Robertson
Last year, a central Nebraska woman helped save a man’s life when she donated her kidney to him. But she isn’t satisfied with saving just one person.
Living in Broken Bow, Nebraska you might expect someone named "Sunshine" to be a bright and cheery person…and you would be correct. “I would always be the one to befriend that person in school that, you know, was kind of off by themselves and didn’t have somebody to talk to,” Sunshine Solaas said. Yes, Sunshine is her real name, and she said her ability to make friends has helped her grow as a person. It also saved a life. A year ago this month, Solaas was at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. She had given her left kidney to a man named Tony, a friend from work.
...Sunshine Solaas already took one of those patients off the waiting list, but she wants to do more. So she is creating a support network for living donors in Nebraska. “Because the doctors don’t know everything. They can tell you what to look for. They can tell you signs of infection, the medical part of it, but the emotional side of it, the physical uncomfort of it, they can’t tell you all of that,” Solaas said.
Solaas said her medical team was great, but after her surgery she wanted to talk to someone who knew exactly what she was going through. She got in touch with a woman she had met online who had also donated a kidney.
“I never met her. We’re friends on Facebook, and that’s where I got most of my help was just through messenger on Facebook,” Solaas said. “I haven’t even heard her voice. I’ve never called her but through Facebook and texting and that kind of correspondence she was able to help me through.” Solaas said the advice she received from her online friend was invaluable; things like how to deal with friends and family doing everything for you, and how to get comfortable at two in the morning a week after someone takes out a piece of your body. “Night time was probably the hardest for me," Solaas said. "Everybody else in my house was sleeping, who do you talk to? And you don’t want to call the hospital because it’s not really an emergency, but you want somebody to talk to.” Solaas has at least six living donors in Nebraska who have agreed to be a part of her support network, but she plans to add more in the months ahead. Ideally, Solaas wants doctors at UNMC to give her contact information to potential living donors, who she can then pair with someone from the support network with similar circumstances. Solaas said not only will this sort of peer-to-peer exchange spread the word about becoming a living donor, you never know what other things might come out of organ donation. After all, Tony, the man she gave a kidney to, performed the ceremony at her wedding last fall. Paying back a little bit of the sunshine he had received from her, just a few months before.
Topic: Nebraska Woman Building Support Group For Organ Donors (Read 2475 times)