Tom Green County Donates Life

When Kristen Henry was 18-years-old, her life appeared to be on the right path. She was young, independent and a college freshman at Angelo State University. Two weeks into her first year, Henry hadn’t been feeling well and had been in and out of the hospital with her aunt Judy, but didn’t think much of it, chalked it up to the flu. 

One afternoon, Henry’s roommate returned to their dorm and relayed that Henry’s mother, sister and aunt were on campus looking for her, which struck her as odd since her mother at the time lived four hours away. Henry’s phone had been off up until that point, and when she met up with her family she was taken to the hospital where she began a routine that would mark 10 ½ hours of each week for the next two years.

“It was so weird because I just jumped into it,” Henry recalls the first time she underwent dialysis. “They had me hooked up to a machine before they even told me I was sick.”

That week, Kristen Henry underwent dialysis every day at roughly 3 ½ hours per session for a kidney disease known as IgA nephropathy. She needed a transplant, and by 2010 she’d been put on the list, but the wait period at that time was circa seven years, she said.

Gradually, Henry’s family members all began to get tested to determine if they were a match, meanwhile she continued dialysis three days a week, 3 ½ hours a session.

“It was hard,” she said. “I had to drop that whole semester and even then, after that it was hard going to class. Dialysis is tiring and I had two seizures on dialysis and passed out once,” she continues. “But it was worth it. If I had to do it again, I would.“

Finally, in 2011, Henry got a surprise visit from her aunt and cousins. At this visit her cousins presented her with a kidney-shaped card that said “A Free Kidney” on it, she recalls, and her aunt passed over a cookie that stated “One Free Kidney”.

“I still didn’t get it,” Henry admits. Having been let down in the past, she didn’t believe that she was finally getting a donation that would mean her life. As her mother and aunt began to cry, Henry said her Aunt Judy revealed that she’d been tested and was a match and that she would be her kidney donor.

Two months later, in August 2011, Kristen Henry and her aunt Judy Hyde went into the hospital for the transplant. “Waiting for two months to get my kidney after I knew I got one—the time went by so slow,” Henry recalls. “The transplant, it went pretty smooth. I was in and out of the hospital for about a month afterwards because they couldn’t get my anti-rejection medicines correct because I was reacting to one of them.” Since the transplant and the medication have been sorted out, Henry hasn’t had to have dialysis or return to the hospital for treatment. Her life is now back on track.

Asked where she’d be today without the donation, Henry found it hard to say, noting that so much has happened in her life over the past several years. “I’d still be on dialysis,” she said after a brief pause. “I’d probably be a lot worse off than I am.”

Now, Henry lives in Houston and leads a normal life void of hospital visits and blood machines, but she hasn’t forgotten where she came from. On Monday noon Kristen Henry, Keli Pearce and several other members, volunteers and participants gathered at the Bentwood Country Club House for the Putt 4 Life Paul Gibson Memorial golf tournament, hosted by the Turn the Paige Foundation.

Founded by Keli Pearce in 2009, the Turn the Paige Foundation is a nonprofit organization that seeks to register organ donors, raise awareness about the need for donors and raise funds to donate to families undergoing transplants.

Pearce started the foundation after the death of her 25-year-old daughter Paige Corbell, who was a staunch advocate for the cause and whose own body went on to save the lives of seven others after her passing. 

“At the time we lost her, I had to make a decision to do something good or not survive, basically,” Pearce said, wiping tears from her eyes. “A mother shouldn’t lose a child.”

Pearce and Henry became friends through the foundation, and while the young woman was waiting on a kidney, Pearce was even tested to see if she was a match. Former Lonestar 92 Program Director Paul Gibson was also an organ donor and advocate, and following his passing, saved the lives of five individuals. For his continued support and service of the foundation throughout the years, the members of the foundation dedicated the golf tournament on Monday afternoon to his memory.

The tournament is just one of many events the foundation hosts each year statewide, and Pearce said her motive is to make sure her daughter’s life left a mark on the world.   

“What we did, I decided I’d start putting on shows and marry it to music, because I want the young demographic,” she said. “I want the young people that believe they can change the world to know they can. Even if it’s something so simple as signing up as an organ donor you’ve made a difference for a minimum of eight people initially, plus if you do tissue donation, another 50.”

When they started back in 2009, Pearce says there were some 432,338 donors for the 24.5 million people in the state, roughly 1.89 percent. Since then, that number has risen by 4.4. million, bringing the state percentage up to 21 percent. Likewise, in 2009 donor registry in Tom Green County was 5 percent. Now, the county ranks second in the state at 44 percent.

A large portion of that increase can be attributed back to the advocacy work the Turn the Paige Foundation does, Pearce says, noting that chapters have since cropped up in different states.

Universal among the foundation chapters is the dual goal of signing up donors and of raising funds to help families cover the expense of transplants. According to Pearce, insurance companies only cover the first three years of medications, some of which run up to $100,000 a year.

“When we raise money, it’s always used to benefit transplant recipients, their families—it’s a really expensive undertaking,” she said. “The point of all this is that we can give you money to help you pay your light bill, to help you be able to travel and be with your loved one while they’re going through a transplant—whatever we can do to offset [the costs].”

For a patient on a waiting list, time is incredibly valuable, Pearce said, and she hopes to be able to give families more time together by helping them fund their expenses.

Nelda Corbell, Paige Corbell’s sister, said she had never really thought about donating until after her sister passed. “Honestly, we’re all huge advocates now and it’s definitely changed our lives, especially seeing all the people we’ve helped,” she said. “Everyone that Paige helped was 12 and under, so it kind of puts it in perspective.”

Of all those she helped, the family received a letter from the mother, grandmother and son after his life was saved by Pearce’s daughter. “The mother basically told me thank you for letting him be a boy. To get play football, to get to go to dances, to get to have life,” she said.

Pearce says that a number of misconceptions circulate which turn some off to the idea of donation. Two of the most common are that money plays a role in the decision making of who receives an organ and that donation violates religious beliefs. Pearce stressed that income plays no role in recipient selection and that donation is accepted across all religions.

Speaking on the matter, Turn the Paige President Mark Rauterkus said, “Any which way you look at it, if God didn’t want us to be interchangeable, he wouldn’t have made us that way.”

Several individuals were registered to donate in an overall successful event Monday. Next on the agenda for the foundation locally is the Jam for Life Benefit, which will likely be held in October.

April is national “Donate Life Month”. For more information on the Turn the Paige Foundation, visit their website.