AURORA, Colo. — A Colorado nonprofit is using the holiday season to encourage Coloradans to consider becoming organ donors.
Approximately 1,300 people in Colorado are waiting for organ transplants that could save their lives, according to Donor Alliance. Tens of thousands of others are waiting on tissue transplants too.
On Tuesday, Donor Alliance set up a booth at Aurora's Holiday Tree Lighting event to educate attendees about organ, eye, and tissue donation.
Two of the people admiring the lights in Aurora were Sherri and Calvin Somerville, who have been married for nearly 40 years. The couple has a lot to celebrate this year.
“We're just going to be here and celebrating the gift of life," Sherri said.
A little more than a decade ago, Calvin retired from the military and learned he needed a liver transplant.
“I didn't believe it at first because I was healthy coming out," Calvin said. “As time went on, you know, I started losing a lot of weight, and my skin started changing, and blood coming out of my nose and stuff like that.”
In 2010, Calvin received a liver transplant, but his body did not respond well to it.
"The kidneys start failing at the same time. And so, he actually had a week to live because he needed to get kidneys and then he also needed to get a liver," Sherri explained.
Calvin went through a kidney transplant two weeks after his second liver transplant. The family thought they were through the worst of it until 2019.
“We went on vacation, went to California and nice weather. All of a sudden, I just got sick, and I couldn't wait to get back on the plane and come home to find out what was going on. Come to find out that kidney took a really hard hit and needed another transplant," Calvin said.
Calvin was on the transplant list for four years until Sherri decided to see if she was a match for a kidney transplant.
“The coordinator did say that, you know, 'Sherri, it's only about a 10% chance that it would actually — your antibodies and his antibodies — would work together.' And so I said, 'Well, let's just try and see.' And sure enough, it worked," Sherri said with a smile. “I'm a donor anyway, and so the way I looked at it is if I died tomorrow, that somebody would get my organs.”
Sherri decided to donate her kidney to her husband in January.
“It was like a piece of cake, actually," Sherri said about the experience. “I got just a little, little bitty, bitty scar. I was just a little sore, and I stayed in the hospital for two days. And then I went home, and I was able to walk up my stairs and go in the kitchen and cook. And it was like it never happened.”
Meanwhile, Calvin no longer has to wake up early for dialysis treatments and can travel on his own schedule.
For the Somervilles, the gift of life means being a selfless person.
“We would have never thought in a million years that this would have happened to us," said Sherri. “I feel very blessed to be able to be a match, for it to even happen. I mean, to me, I just felt like when I heard it, it was a miracle."
One organ donor can save up to eight lives and can save or heal up to 75 lives through tissue donation. To learn more, visit the Donor Alliance website.
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