JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Stephanie Donelan, a nurse at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, shows up to work every day in her scrubs, but in January, she entered the operation room in scrubs for her first organ donation.
Each April, Duval County celebrates 'Donate Life Month,' a special week set aside to recognize transplant nurses. Transplant Nurses Week (April 22 – 26) helps raise awareness around the unique contributions these nurses make to the lives of their patients.
For Donelan, she donated her kidney to a stranger in honor of her mom, who she lost recently to a battle against dementia.
“Were there an option for a brain transplant, we would have been all for it," Donelan told First Coast News. "But unfortunately, it wasn't an option. So, knowing I could give back to someone who is experiencing chronic health challenges and are in need of [a] donation, I felt like an opportunity to give where I couldn't in my own personal life.”
Donelan says her experience has not only given her closure, but a new perspective as a nurse, helping her better understand what it's like to be in a patient's chair.
“Having an opportunity to give back to someone who is dealing with a chronic condition, when I couldn’t feel really meaningful,” Donelan said.
And while Donelan may not know every detail of the patient she's helped, what she does know is that she helped that person get off the waitlist for a kidney. Dr. Shennen Mao says the waitlist for kidney transplants is a long wait time.
“A deceased donor average waiting time in our area is around five years, that's five years of time where that individual is likely on dialysis and struggling daily with challenges of kidney disease,” Mao said.
What is shortening the 90,000-person transplant list are living donor chains, where people like Donelan are healthy enough to live with one kidney just so someone else's loved one can live off of dialysis.
“I love my scar," Donelan said. " I'm reminded of the surgery, you know, every day with my scar, and I feel really proud and I think mom would be really proud, too.”
It's a scar that reminds Donelan of the reason why she’s a nurse today– her mom.