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First Time Meetings
Recipient to Meet Donor’s Family at U.S. Transplant Games
KIM BURDAKIN, 45 Muscatine, Iowa
On a Saturday in April 2000, Kim Burdakin, a single mother of two daughters aged nine and twelve, awoke feeling confused and weak. Unable to drive, her mother took her to the local hospital where doctors told her to go immediately to Iowa City for treatment at University of Iowa Hospital. There, tests showed that 60 percent of Kim’s liver had been destroyed.
“I kept thinking to myself that there must be some kind of medicine I could take so I could go home to my kids and get back to work,” recalls Kim. Instead, doctors said that Kim needed a transplant. Her sister, Kay LaRue, volunteered to donate a section of her liver and doctors ran tests to see if she was a match. But there was a drawback to this procedure. The hospital had only performed three such transplants.
Kim’s name was placed on the waiting list and her sister became her safety net, in case a liver wasn’t found in time. Kim knew she might not survive, but at the same time, she decided to fight. Two weeks later, a second biopsy showed that her liver was 90 percent destroyed and during the procedure, a vessel was pierced. Kim was bleeding internally and rushed to surgery. While her sister was prepped for the donation and Kim waited for her liver, the girls’ parents faced the prospect of their two daughters undergoing a very serious medical procedure at the same time.
Before the transplant could take place, word came that a liver was on its way from Michigan and Kim underwent ten hours of surgery. “I didn’t find out about the donor until I woke up from surgery. That’s when I realized that a family had to lose a loved one in order for me to recover.”
Kim sent notes to her donor family and has spoken on the phone with them several times, feeling at ease with their soft, comforting voices. This week she is attending her first National Kidney Foundation U.S. Transplant Games where she will have a chance to meet her donor family in person. She is competing in the golf, bowling and track and field events at the Games and will give a special tribute to her donor’s family at the Opening Ceremonies.
“I’m anxious about meeting my donor family and hope that I can convey how much I appreciate what they’ve given me,” says Kim. “I want them to know that I’m taking care of myself so that they can be proud their Steven’s liver has a good home.”
KIM’S DONOR, STEVE TOTH
Steven Toth, 21, of Niles, Michigan, loved to sing, play football and laugh. At ease with everyone, he was one of those people who had many friends. There were so many, in fact, that his parents stopped answering the phone when he was around because it was always for Steven.
He dreamed of becoming a firefighter one day so that he could save lives, but his plan was stopped short on April 22, 2000, when he was involved in a car accident. The EMT personnel who arrived on the scene were amazed that he had survived the crash at all. Steven hung on for several hours, but then died early the next day.
Despite their grief and shock, his parents, Eugene and Sue, decided to donate his organs, since only a few months earlier he had expressed this wish to his mother. As Steven’s parents and brother grieved for him, they wondered about the people whose lives were saved by their son. They also felt proud that although Steven was unable to become a firefighter, he did have a chance to save lives as he had wanted.
The Toths, who received several notes and have exchanged phone calls with one of the recipients, Kim Burdakin, will have a chance to meet Kim in person this week, at the National Kidney Foundation U.S. Transplant Games. Although they are anxious about the meeting, they are holding close the words they know their dear Steven would be saying, “Not to worry, it will be okay.”
