One Living Reason to Donate Your Organs

By Eric Ernst

When she was 18 and undergoing a Navy physical, Bette Luksha-Gammell got the shock of her life.

"You'll never have children, and I'm surprised you're still walking," a doctor said. He later told her parents she probably wouldn't live past 20.

Unknown to her, Gammell had pulmonary hypertension, and her lungs and parts of her heart were three times normal size.

Following that news, a gradual decline left Gammell hooked to an oxygen tank for too much of her days.

Eighteen years ago, doctors transplanted two lungs into Gammell and sewed up a hole in her heart. In 2000, after her body rejected those organs, she received a single lung transplant. Then, about four years ago, she received a transplanted kidney after hers was damaged by the medicines she took for her lungs.

She now lives in North Port with her husband, Larry. On Sunday, she'll celebrate her 50th birthday.

Gammell may have lived a life of struggle and pain, but she doesn't ask, "Why me?"

"Never question God," she says. "You might not like the answer."

Instead of wallowing in self-pity, Gammell adjusted her goals and went to work for Disney cruise lines and as a baggage handler (no kidding) for Continental Airlines.

"I'm one of those people, I have to be doing something. I can't sit at home and collect a check every month," she says. "I'd love to be back at work, but I know the risk I take."

Gammell settles for teaching a wire jewelry class at the Cultural Center of Charlotte County.

She's also an advocate and ambassador for organ transplants. At Disney, she started a support group called Second Chance. She records her daily struggles at www.survivinganorgantransplant.blogspot.com. She writes letters with suggestions for Medicare reform.

And she has traveled across the country to talk with potential recipients filled with doubts, fears and conflicting emotions.

At 9 p.m. Sundays, she watches a new CBS television series, "Three Rivers," which follows the lives of organ donors, recipients and surgeons at a fictitious hospital in Pittsburgh.

Gammell calls the show the first national platform for organ donations.

"It certainly starts a conversation, " says Jennifer Krause, public affairs manager for LifeLink Foundation.

The foundation, which arranges organ donations from Tampa Bay through Fort Myers, reported 584 transplants in its coverage area last year. Another 437 donors provided tissue for such uses as bone grafts and heart valves.

Gammell sees donors as the real heroes. "I try to do something, each day, to honor donor families," she says. "At the most grief-filled time of their lives, they gave up someone they loved to give life to someone that someone else loves."

To recipients and donors, she offers, by her own example, a simple creed: "You have all these issues, but you have to stay positive. Being positive keeps you alive, whether you've had a transplant or you're healthy."

To become an organ donor, register online at www.donatelife.net.

Eric Ernst's column runs Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Contact him at eric.ernst@heraldtribune.com -or- (941) 486-3073.