WESTFIELD – Fourteen years ago this month Chris Daley was going through a routine exam at her doctor’s office when her doctor discovered she had Polycystic Kidney Disease. She was told that in just a few short years she would have to go on dialysis and then wait about three years for a kidney donor.
Daley took her doctors instructions to heart and, by following his orders and making healthy choices for her diet, she was able to go a full 12 years before she had to start dialysis. Eventually she began the taxing dialysis treatment to save her life and began the wait for the generosity of a stranger.
It did take about three years before Daley got some good news.
“I got a call on a Sunday night at 7 and I had to go right to the hospital. I was ecstatic. Words cannot express the excitement I felt when I found out there was going to be a transplant,” recalled Daley. “I was so excited I couldn’t even talk. The nurse had to hang up and call me back. I had to be at the hospital by 9 p.m.
“It was 11 years in January. It’s given me my life back. I felt an energy level I can’t describe after I received my transplant. My color came back to normal. It’s given me freedom from a machine that kept me alive. I’m still on medication so I don’t reject the kidney. It’s hard to put into words what you feel once you have something working that’s normal.”
Daley explains with heartfelt emotion, “Donating organs is not an easy subject when a tragedy has occurred. But people have to know that other people can survive after a transplant and that is due to the generosity of donating your organs. It’s hard to make that choice but if you know someone who needs a transplant and what it does for them it makes a difference.”
Daley now volunteers with Life Choice Donor Services to help get the word out and educate people about organ donation and make people aware that organs and tissue are needed to help save lives.
April is Donate Life Month. Daley spoke with Mayor Daniel Knapik and he agreed to fly the Life Choice flag at City Hall for the month of April. There will be a flag raising at city hall on Wednesday, April 4 at 10 a.m. All are invited to attend. Daley will be there along with Mayor Knapik, a transplant nurse coordinator and other family members who have suffered the loss of a loved one and made the choice to donate organs.
Life Choice also has quilt, each square representing a donor family, which is put on display all over New England. On April 30 there will be a quilt hanging at the Westfield Athenaeum that will remain hanging from the second floor during the month of May.
If you would like to donate your organs, you can sign up at the registry when renew your license or you can go to www.donatelifenewengland.org.
