Jeannie Cordaro

National KIDNEY Month

Many lives have been changed by the selfless acts of living organ donors. Since March is National Kidney Month, we thought we’d do our part, and help raise awareness about kidney disease by sharing some of the miracle stories that have happened in Cherokee County.

You may remember Michelle Nichols and Leslie White, sisters who were featured in Everyday Angels in our January issue. Currently, they are raising funds and waiting for donors. Everyday Angels also shared the story of Amber and Brian Miller in our September 2020 issue. The latest update is that Amber met the criteria to donate a kidney to her husband and, as of press time, that surgery was scheduled for Feb. 25.

We hope you enjoy reading these amazing stories of need, and how — more often than not — strangers are the ones who stepped up and made the difference. We’ve been encouraged, and hope you will be, too.

According to the National Kidney Foundation, 100,000 people in the United States are waiting for a kidney transplant. If you’d like to learn more about how you can help, Ashley Haynes (who tells her family’s story on Page 16) recommends the following websites: www.emoryhealthcare. org/centers-programs/ kidney-transplant-program/ living-donor.html www.kidney.org/atoz/ content/living-donation

Donating without Doubt

BY JEANNIE CORDARO

What some may call coincidences, I call carefully crafted plans, unbeknownst to those of us walking around in this world. This is the story of one such plan that began more than 20 years ago when, as newlyweds, my husband, Jay, and I began looking for a place to call home that would be convenient to both our places of work. At that time, we were living in Lawrenceville, and I had just gotten a teaching job in Dallas. We set out one weekend looking at homes in Towne Lake, and then drove down Sixes Road to look at a new subdivision we had read about. On the way, we turned around just before where Starbucks now sits, thinking it was too far off the interstate, and went home.

The next weekend, we decided to drive back to Cherokee County to look at BridgeMill. We decided it looked like a wonderful place to raise a family, and found a home. We welcomed our first child, a son, two years after settling in BridgeMill, and a daughter two years after that. When our son was 4, we signed him up to play baseball at Hobgood Park. That was where we first met Trey and Leslie Powell and their children. Mason and Brady attended Sixes Elementary, where they often would be classmates and would play on countless sports teams together, some of which Trey coached. Sophie and Anna also were classmates, and would play basketball together, sometimes as teammates coached by Trey and, later, as opponents when I began coaching basketball. Anna and Sophie also were in the same Girl Scout Troop that I led. Later, when Trey and Leslie made the decision to move Mason and Anna to schools in the zone in which Leslie taught, our physical paths crossed less often. A baseball season here, a basketball game there, but we stayed in touch as many do, through Facebook. And, that is where I followed Trey’s battles and prayed for his recovery.

When Leslie posted that they were looking for a living donor and provided a link to a questionnaire to begin the search, there wasn’t even a thought process. I just clicked the link and filled it out. To my surprise, I was cleared to take the next step and have labs run. Then, step by step, I was approved to move through the process. A Bible verse became my mantra when I began to worry about not being cleared to move to the next step, or became overwhelmed with the process: “Perhaps this is the moment for which you were created” — Esther 4:14. When people questioned why I would put myself through an elective surgery, my answer was that God had created me and if he had created me in a way that I could help someone, then I should do it. This verse perfectly mirrored my thoughts.

Nearly a year after beginning the process, I got the call that I had been approved for donation. It was just surreal. Finally, on Nov. 12, 2020, in the midst of a pandemic, I underwent a left nephrectomy and Trey received the kidney, which I named Althea, which means power to heal. I’m told she was beautiful, and she began working immediately.

It is my fervent prayer that she will give Trey many, many, many more years of a full and joyful life. I would do it again in a heartbeat. In the U.S., 93,000 people are waiting on a kidney, and the average wait for a deceased donor kidney is five to 10 years. The longer a person is on dialysis, while waiting on a transplant, the more the short- and long-term success rates are negatively impacted. A kidney transplant has the potential to double the life expectancy of the recipient. When considering that a healthy person can live with one kidney, and these above statistics, if anyone reading this feels called to be a living donor, I am happy to be a resource and answer any questions.