No. 17 Vol. 12
My Life Publications • 973-809-4784
December 2021
Wayne Kidney Recipient Lives in Gratitude and Cares for Others
H
By Steve Sears ere’s the story of ‘PJ,’” says Jean Sime of Wayne. “PJ is the name of my kidney. And ‘P’ is for Patricia – my donor’s name - and ‘J,’ Jean, my name.” Sime adds, “I am doing well, knock on wood. It’s been two and a half years now.” More on Patricia – a loving part of this story - in a moment. Sime is a contributor to a book titled Because of Organ Donation. “That book is so important,” she says. “It’s a book with 25 different coauthors where we share our transplant journeys. It’s comprised of not only donors and recipients, but also donor families.” Sime never gave up. She needed a kidney, but she wasn’t ready to accept one from a living door for personal reasons. In 2013, she was diagnosed with end stage renal disease, which basically means her kidneys were not functioning as they should have been. “I had to decide what I wanted to do,” Sime says, “because I couldn’t live without doing dialysis. I had no option.” Sime, who started dialysis in 2015 while still working full time, says that, at that time, she was in a funk, in denial. “It took me a while to actually adjust my attitude and say, ‘You know what? This machine, this treatment, is keeping you alive.’ So I could make the best of a bad situation, or I could be miserable. So I chose to make the best out of the situation.” She embraced the dialysis – and others undergoing treatment at the same time. “I would get to the center early, so I could go to every single patient and say hello to them, not realizing what a difference that made. Some of these folks didn’t have any family who would come and visit them, and sometimes just saying hello to someone would make their day.” It was the start of what Sime calls her “kindness role,” a special care for others in dialysis that would lead her to become a peer mentor for kidney patients. “These folks were your family, they were my dialysis family, and we relied on each other not only for emotional support, but to educate each other.” After being placed on the waiting list for a kidney, Sime one day was having routine blood work done while telling her story to the phlebotomist. That same day, after Sime had departed, the phlebotomist ran into one of her co-workers, a nurse of 40 years at the hospital named Patricia Milford, who was seeking to be a living kidney donor. Her hopes for doing so had been dashed twice, so
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TINA CALI REALTOR Photo courtesy of Jean Sime. the phlebotomist mentioned Jean’s name to her. Milford was very willing to donate one of her kidneys to Sime. “My phlebotomist called me and left a message on my answering machine,” Sime recalls. “It was like, ‘You’re not going to believe this. I ran into one of my co workers, Pat, and we were talking about you, and she’s considering donating her kidney to you. You’ve got to call her.’ I was taken aback, I’m not going to lie. I was truly taken aback, because now my whole mindset is changing. I’m just waiting for this miracle to happen, and this total stranger who I’d never met in my life is offering this selfless gift to continued on page 9
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