Just weeks after competing in a mini-triathlon with his three sons, Kurt Person lost the ability to use his right shoulder. Prior to the injury-causing accident, Person could often be found competing in triathlons, barefoot-water skiing, test riding motor cycles, All Terrain Vehicles and snow mobiles, or taking part in his favorite activity: playing ball [...]
Congratulations to Donor Alliance, the federally-designated organ procurement organization serving Colorado and Wyoming, which this week reported that it increased driver’s license office donor registration in 2011. This maintains Colorado’s position as one of the highest donor designation rates in the country. (At the close of 2011, 67 percent of Colorado’s licensed drivers and ID card holders [...]
“Participating in the Donate Life Rose Parade Float as a float rider was an amazing time. It was awesome decorating the float with all the other participants. After spending time with the donor families who participated, I decided to pen a thank-you letter to my own donor family. At first I was intimidated but they [...]
The following story about Rose Parade float rider and tissue recipient Susan Cossabone has been published more than 600 times by newspapers and regional television networks’ websites throughout the country. Additionally, NBC40 in New Jersey produced this segment on her story. Great media visibility promoting the possibilities of tissue donation! How a woman’s leg was saved [...]
At 77 years old, Jane Przedpelski describes herself as “happily active.” A Colorado resident, she finds pleasure in camping, snowshoeing and walking in the mountains and the desert with her husband. However, a fall from a ladder and subsequent broken leg threatened her active lifestyle. The fall resulted in a broken tibia, or shin bone. [...]
As Thanksgiving approaches, please pause with us to give thanks for the selfless tissue donors and their brave families who make the choice to give the gift of life. Each year, life-saving and life-enhancing tissue is provided by approximately 30,000 tissue donors. Just one tissue donor can enhance the lives of more than 50 people. [...]
Connie Hilger eagerly anticipated her adult son’s visit home for Christmas in 2009. During his visit, he teamed up with his former classic rock band for a reunion show at a local pub. Connie’s family, as well as the family of another band member, were excited to be together for the holidays and were enjoying [...]
The answer is a resounding NO! A reader recently wrote into the San Antonio Express-News to ask this question. She had “heard of families losing a loved one, being pressured to donate the deceased’s organs, then being charged for organ removal.” In the newspaper’s response, they quote the Texas Organ Sharing Alliance: “It does not cost anything [...]
Via Columbus 10TV: A Columbus Crew rookie said on Friday that a tissue donation saved his dream of playing soccer in the professional league. Several years ago Bernardo Anor suffered from a torn anterior cruciate ligament, 10TV’s Tracy Townsend reported on Friday. “I received the ball I was going to turn with the ball when [...]
From Channel 3000: Families from south central Wisconsin gathered to light candles over the weekend to remember some departed loved ones who brought hope and life to others. The “Reflections of Life, Reflections of Love” ceremony was a chance for families to honor loved ones who helped save someone’s life through tissue donation. “When you [...]
Following 9/11, Zach felt like many other Americans, “I was tired of watching everything that was happening on TV and thought there had to be a way I could do more to help.” This inspired him to take his EMT experience and passion for medicine and become a combat medic in the army. After all [...]
Susan Cossabone always had a gift with horses and a passion for riding. To fulfill that passion, she owned a 10-acre ranch, Hidden View Farm, with 26 horses. Not only did she ride for hours a day, Susan also rode competitively, helped retrain difficult horses, and set up an equine summer camp for at-risk and [...]
Concerning a “new type of stem cell therapy where live cells, harvested from a tissue donor, are added to an allograph, which then would act like or mimic how the patient’s bone would act.” Incredible to watch how modern medicine continues to find new uses for donated tissue!
When Devin Katacinski was just 12 years old he sustained second-degree burns after spilling a cup of scalding coffee on his arm. The coffee immediately took the skin off from the bottom of his thumb to the middle of his forearm. Here Devin discusses his injury, and recovery, which was thanks in part to a [...]
Rachel Frank was a typical college athlete: focused, intense, and determined. When a knee injury threatened her ability to complete her final soccer season, she simply played through the pain. It wasn’t long before Rachel discovered she could no longer “grin and bear” her meniscus injury. She had to have the injured tissue replaced with [...]
A chat with Dr. Richard Kagan about his use of allograft tissue as a burn surgeon, and what tissue donation means to him Dr. Kagan is the Chief of Staff at the Shriners Hospital for Children in Cincinnati and Professor of Surgery at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine Q: Describe why allograft skin [...]
“As a registered nurse, I have solicited and educated families about organ and tissue donation,” said Margie Mayfield. “However, as a mom receiving this precious gift, it is truly beyond anything I can imagine.” In 2010, Margie tore her ACL while playing with a child in an inflatable jumping house that she was sponsoring at [...]
As medicine continues to advance, so too do possibilities for tissue donation and transplant. One of the latest medical treatments available use stem cells from tissue donors. Check out this exciting story out of Baltimore with Dr. Mark Myerson, director of Mercy Medical Center’s Institute for Foot and Ankle Reconstruction. Dr. Myerson used AlloStem Stem Cell Bone [...]
In this Vail Daily article an orthopedic surgeon discusses torn ACLs – a common sports injury, especially among skiers. He discusses the biology of knees, how a torn ACL can be treated (including with an allograft transplant from a deceased donor), as well as the rehabilitation. A good read – especially for our friends here [...]
Tom Cycyota, the CEO of nonprofit tissue bank AlloSource, and tissue recipient Sarah Tomicich, who also works at AlloSource, were interviewed for this important story during Donate Life Month. This is a great reminder that tissue donation can have the same life-saving and life-enhancing benefits of organ donation.
OrthoSuperSite reported this week on promising 7-year follow up results for patients who have received a meniscal allograft transplant – the transplant of a meniscus and cartilage from a deceased donor. This procedure is for treatment of patients who have suffered a torn meniscus, suffer from knee pain and do or may suffer from arthritis. [...]
This article from the McCook Daily Gazette includes an important statistic: 98 percent of all adults have heard about organ donation and 86 percent have heard of tissue donation While the number of adults who have heard of tissue donation is definitely climbing, it still lags behind awareness of organ donation. The uses for donated [...]
AlloSource’s H.C. Martensen forges a deeper connection to his work H.C. Martensen works in the AlloSource tissue processing core where he is faced with the powerful realities and possibilities of tissue donation and transplantation every day. He also has the utmost confidence in the allografts that he and his tissue bank colleagues produce, so much [...]
Account from the North American Spine Society meeting AlloSource recently showcased AlloStem Bone Graft Substitute at this year’s NASS meeting in Orlando. Dr. Eubulus Kerr, a spinal surgeon from Shreveport Louisiana, presented a review of his clinical usage of AlloStem tissue in spine fusion procedures. Dr. Kerr presented follow-up from cervical and lumbar fusion cases with [...]
This week we were pleased to chat with Dr. Francis, a podiatric surgeon from Tulsa, about his use of allograft tissue and his hopes for tissue transplant in the future.
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