welcome my name is natasha sherman and i am your host and today's show is about organ donation and organ transplants so my first guest is donna saddam and she is the recipient of a kidney and she received that kidney when she was fourteen years old welcome thank you thank you so much for being on the show you're welcome and my other guest is her daughter jennifer aniston she is it turned only grateful that her mother didn't get that transplant and she is a passionate advocate for organ donation welcome jen thank you thank you for having me yes so i've never done a show on organ transplant and i don't know why that hasn't happened sooner because it's a pretty significant subject yes so don that we're going to know you and i talked a little before the show but i want people to get your story ok so when you were fourteen you became very ill yes and you found out it was due to a reaction to penicillin right right and then they told you what they tell me when i was in the hospital to act fourteen i thought that was really far from home i was like twenty five miles away from home and fourteen you know but now it's kind of you hear it talked about right but it fourteen to me that sounds like it must have felt like a totally alien concept and certainly like i'm going to die it did it did i felt  i can remember saying to my parents if i'm going to die please take me home i want to die at home and what did they say to you we cried i don't i think my mom and i were both fraid i could die but they wanted to trust the doctors the doctor said a kidney transplant would be the only way to save my life well if they had sent me home i would be dead within a week wow so they had to put their faith in the doctors ending god to they were very nice and that's a lot of faith yes yeah so they tested all the members of your family correct i have two older  siblings my mom and my dad went through all the testing and anyone in my family could have donated but my dad being the breadwinner and my two older sisters being in school and in college my mom decided it would be her that would donate so when she went to extensive testing to make sure she was healthy enough to donate and then oh you know what a decision it's like most of us never get to make and need to make those kind of decisions that aren't life threatening you know for your child and when you went into surgery were you hopeful yes yeah it's great i had a lot of well my two sisters and my dad i knew in the waiting room i got to see them before we went in and our that's awesome and it's really important for people to hear that that supporting somebody makes a huge difference absolutely you may think that it's just something you know light hearted but it really so here you are at fourteen and it kind of gives you hope and i think also it fourteen death isn't quite that real there is kind of this youthful right bright eyed billeted to switch gears maybe but i think what has helped me to is when i was when i had said to my parents to spake me home and i i think my doctors realized that i needed to go home and they did allow me to come home for a day where i got to see and i can remember my mom telling me this later all the neighbors are knocking on the door they all knew i was coming home for the day and she was hesitant to let them in but she thought this is what i need it yes and now it is exactly what i need to shift see all the support yeah yeah and the familiar i think it gives you kind of ground you i know i once was in a car accident where in philadelphia and it was th the other driver left and the scene and i wasn't hurt but i remember my thought at that time just let me get home if i get home i'll be all right you know how mean so much yeah it really does yeah and i don't think you realize  a fourteen i you don't realize it until you're put into for the yes and i was in yeah yeah so here you are forty four years later almost like a walking miracle right and you had to take anti rejection drugs yes but they've kept you alive they can a year from rejecting the kidney and i still have the kidneys work and sighing i'm still alive my mother is still alive and her kidney has been budgets of us so one of the things that you're challenged with now and there are some side effects to being on that medication and for so long also right is that you've started to develop skin cancer you know about ten years ago i noticed my first skin cancer they did take it off it wasn't a problem but now i am having more frequent and more invasive skin cancer but it's it is an issue but it's not i know i go i have a procedures done and i'm fine it's skin cancer is not going to kill me as long as i have it taken care of right away so i  and then i accept that i have to have this and i'm looking i have to have two more procedures done in november and have it done i'll go back to work and everything will be good n just so you got married i and i assume the standard protocol at that point might have been if you had asked to discourage you go in for say at fourteen i never thought about having kids but when i was told i you know kidney transplant that was one of my first questions i asked the doctors and they kind of didn't say yes didn't say no and fast forward to six seven years later jen father and we got married and i thought i'm going to just try and see what happens and since jan i've had four children they were healthy i went through the pregnanc your oldest son so yes the first miracle after so you grew up by this was standard stuff you know your mother had a kidney transplant it wasn't talked about was it you know as a kid we used to go to philadelphia twice a year for her to be checked up with her just in the kidney doctor and everybody and it was a fun day we would all get in the van and go down to the city and you know do something fun for the day when there was the zoo or whatever it was so that was just something that we did and we all knew every six months we had to do it and you know it was just part of our lives we didn't really i don't think i fully understand the kidney transplant and everything that had happened and so we were older because we were young but the older we got we came to appreciate it more and you know the more things that happened in our lives the more we truly appreciate what our grandmother did for our mother and yes you know what people do for other people every day and you had i think an uncle who had a double lung transplant my mom's sister actually her husband had pulmonary fibrosis he was diagnosed and then maybe two years after he was diagnosed i think yeah he got the call a week before christmas that he was going to there was lungs for him and he was going to have a dual lung transplant so it was amazing their stories that he was just a real fun loving guy in their stories that he hopped right up on the operating table and you know said something like let's do this or something he passed away about a month month and a half after the transplant maybe a little bit longer maybe three or four so that was tough  so you know it's like i remember as a kid you know there were things talked about but your parents are just your parents and you don't pay too much attention to all the stories exactly but then it's an adult you kind of you know realize because you could relate to it in some way how did you when did it become a passion for you to talk about organ donation i think it really started to hit me when my dad died my dad had a heart attack about seven years ago and we were in the in the room and and a woman came in from the gift of life and we had at that point been told that there wasn't really any hope so we went and met with the woman from the gift of life and she told us that he was an organ donor which we had already known he would always make comments like if they want if they want it they can have it because i can't use it when i'm dad or you know if your mom and the transplant i would have you so we knew that that was something that he wanted so we made the decision to do need his organs and all night they did testing and blood tests that kind of thing to try to see who they could match with his organs and then the next morning we went with him to the  and we were able to sit with him and hold his hand until he passed away and then we you know went home and it was a terrible day but there's always come for in knowing that we helped other people that day with his organs and that's what he would have wanted  so after that we kind of just meet a team for the gift of life walk every year and we advocate for it on social media to people that we talk to if i ever you know see somebody who's license at work or something like that that's not an organ donor i try to educate them the best way that i tell it's just really important you can take them to heaven or you can take them to have them but you you know i'm going to read just paragraph from a letter that gift of life sent to your daughter death about her grandfather but then i want to talk to you more about why people don't engage with gift of life so they said when they were talking about your father and they're saying to her when your grandfather when he died your family wanted to know he wouldn't die in vain and leave a legacy reflecting who he really was your papa is the  hero was a hero when he died and saved someone's life by giving them the gift of life the gift of his left kidney was given to a sixty five year old retired gentleman who is from pennsylvania he was diagnosed with severe kidney disease left him on dialysis three times a week he was no longer able to endure the painful dialysis treatments and he received this life saving transplant from your pop up yeah so how we need credible you know for you to hear but also for your daughter to hear so i want to ask you and going to leave this to both of you were all asked both of you the same question what do you think is people's aversion to signing up for this i think there's a lot of rumors around things that are not true around the act of giving him an organ donor like people think if you're in a car accident you get to the hospital and they see you exactly and that's actually not the case people don't realize that you really have to still be alive but have a traumatic brain injury or something like that for them to be able to harvest the organs because they still have to be working so it has to happen very quickly  when they landing get that organ from the time and then that they get it and then get back in the plane like maybe somebody from pennsylvania couldn't get a kidney from somewhere in california because the flight is too long that i'm writing so i think every organ is different so i can't really answer that specifically but it definitely has to be done quickly right what do you think is the version i gree with john but i also think sometimes i think that they're going to have this added expense hospital expense and still right right and so do you do public speaking about this or i haven't gotten there yet we're still just kind of focusing on educating the community and participating in the walks and anytime we go somewhere that the gift of life has an event or the sharing network in new jersey you have an event or they would table somewhere we always try to participate in go talk to people and share our story as well people are always so mesmerized that my mom has had a kidney for forty four years and that's not hers because that's not what the life expectancy is now but my mom was such a child when she got her transplant so she didn't have time to you know have side effects of different things that really cause kidney failure when you're older so if she didn't have any other you know health issues really like hypertension or anything like that that add to you know your body is weakness and that kind of thing so the fact that she was so healthy when she got the kidney i think plays a role in how she's able to still continue on you know and what do you think so you know any number of people get organ transplants and everybody reacts differently emotionally it seems to me that you have a very positive attitude what is it that you think has helped you get through everything you had to get through i think that lots of faith a support system i have an extremely strong support system even going through  and i think that's it that's number one import yeah have you changed doctors over the years or have you stuck with interesting we have one who was it was three years ago my original admitting retired and i was laughing because he was probably the longest male relationship by i have ever had and he he retired i begged him not to but it was time  and i still go down to the city and down to once a year but i see a nephrologist in my area and i know i mean other than that primary care its been the same so what would you say to somebody two different questions what would you say to somebody to give them kind of just your support if they know they're facing an organ transplant well if they are in social media there are so many groups in social media and interestingly i just found this out maybe two years ago and i'm a member of their organ transplant group and it's anybody there is heart transplants and their liver transplants marrow transplants and then i'm also a member of women's something on there my my friends will not see what i post the only preety people that will see are members of that group yeah she also kind of makes it because there are some things that maybe i don't want to share with my kids and i think just like you know even if you look at twelve step programs if we need somebody who understands our right areas right you do what is it you think people don't understand know i don't want to go out even though it's only eight o'clock at night i'm tired i don't want to come over yeah i love my grandchildren i don't want to come over right now i'm tired i'm going to bad yeah i think that's the hardest thing for some people now understand is that you do tire easily and what would what advice or what would you say to encourage people to as being a member of one is these groups is that somebody in there had just posted they were celebrating their tenth year of heart transplant so it's not like the life  expectancy is so low these people go on for years and years and years and you're giving them such a better life and your dad gift of life heart there's no machine like kidney there is the machine court there is no make a donation center tender and you can talk from the heart because you were born because somebody was willing to give their kidney to your mom but what conversation do people need to have in order to hear the possibility you mean the possibility of giving their hands you know i think it's just important to talk about it at the dinner table or have regular  conversation you know my dad never sat down with us and said we need to have a serious conversation about my wishes at the end of my life he was forty you know eight years old that wasn't something that we were thinking about but we knew because he would always say you know in passing well when i die you know if they want them they can have them so we knew that that was genuine and that was something he wanted my kids to know what my mom's went through they knew what my uncle went through they obviously know what we did for my dad  and we do talk about it you know at the dinner table you know if there's a question my daughter she they have superhero every day every year at school and she goes as an organ donor she has a cape and she goes out and she is that we're going to honor at school because that's her super hero so i think it's just important to spread awareness and be aware and people can be live donors you don't have to pass away to do any an organ obviously you can do any of your skin for people who have skin cancer really get skin graft yeah sure absolutely they talked about doing that for my mom's for a little while last year but now it's feeling so they're not going to go that route but there's lots of different ways to do it and every little bit helps i think it's just important to have that conversation and make people aware make them aware there's all walks all around there's a runs we do the walk every year we have a team my kids do the walk their friends do the walk with us my cousins do the walk my brothers and sisters to just sad that said they're not hearing this when somebody he's dying yes in the worst time of your life when your loved one is is dying and then you have somebody the well you know can we take their organs i'm sure they do it in a nice way but i think that's really that to me would be devastating to hear yes if i was and you're dealing with so that's a very powerful point to to indicate to people start having this conversation earlier and thinking about it earlier because at the worst time in your life somebody is coming and saying oh you want to donate right right yeah yeah so we just have a minute or so left is there a commonality to what people share or who have received like on your facebook groups is there a commonality there a common complaint a common  right because obviously i know my donor but some people want and some people do want to know i've noticed some of the people that do want and i don't want to say they get upset but because it's a two way street yes sites have to want to now and they get their sad if the donor family doesn't all write to me now i have a really good friend who is like best friends with her down family and it's amazing to me like they post pictures there she's babysat for the grandkids so but not everybody has and yeah and you know what's interesting about that is it makes it more real right the whole idea of you know i'm giving the gift of life it's a nice thought but it's very conceptual right and if that's all it takes great but you could see actually see and connect to with i think that's very yeah and it never dawned on me that that would but it makes sense like where did i get this from because let's face it receiving an organ with you is different not so different but you were fourteen it was your mom there was no mystery around it and but this whole idea it's it's an extraordinarily challenging the life altering experience so it must raise a lot of emotional stuff and a lot of questions besides the gratitude right yeah so we're at the end of our time i want to thank you for being here i want to encourage people you know we're going to put the names of the organizations and we're going to put your either phone number or email address people can contact you if they i have any questions they want to ask but thank you for being here thank you for representing a bike an amazing group and oh thank you for being an advocate and i love thank you for having us my name is to talk to sherman thank you for joining us