July 20, 2008
Closing Thoughts On The 2008 Transplant Games
Posted by Madhava Gosh under Liver Transplant, Sports[4] Comments
I realize I am going on and on about these Games but they were a big deal for me, both as a goal to strive for and use as motivation to rehab, and also as an experience. Over 6,000 people attended including athletes, living donors, donor families, and volunteers so it was pretty exciting.
I was caught up into my own drama so it took me a while to realize that the athletes, while a big part, weren’t the most important part. I was talking to a woman from Kansas City while watching basketball. It was half court games and Team Pittsburgh was on one half and Team Mo-Kan was on the other so we ended up next to each other, each rooting for the other’s team in addition to our own. She pointed out that they didn’t have a coach, but there was a high school basketball attending the Games for the first time who was getting into them and was considering coaching for the next one.
I asked her what organ he had transplanted and she said no, he was here supporting his wife. When I inquired about her, she said no, she wasn’t transplanted either. I was confused and she clarified — the wife had lost her son and donated his organs, but was having a difficult time coming to grips with her loss, so her husband brought her to the games to help process her grief. That was a light bulb moment for me.
The woman to whom I was talking had her own story. Her son had been a deceased donor 17 years ago, and on the court playing basketball was a guy who had recently had a transplant whom her son had played soccer against in high school. That was an important thing for her.
I often found myself at a loss when speaking to donor families. I never had to process the emotions that goes with receiving an organ from a deceased donor, as my liver came from a living donor, my son Marken. Nor had I really thought deeply about what a donor family goes through. If I end up going to another Games I will be more sensitive about that.
The cutest thing at the Games were the little kids. At Track and Field, they had some 25 meter events. One was the Diaper Dash, for transplanted kids under age five. The finish line was thick with photographers for that one. Here is a shot I got from the stands:
Before the race, a father went out on the track with a boy about 2 1/2 years old. He had him do a practice run. While the kid was able to conceptualize starting and running in a lane, he missed the part about finishing. He crossed the line and kept going with the rapt focus of a little kid bent on a mission. His mother was yelling at him to stop but he wasn’t hearing her. When she realized he wasn’t stopping, she started to chase him but she seemed unaccostumed to running and wasn’t gaining on him very fast. She kept yelling and eventually broke his focus so he turned around after an extra 25 meters and came back. So cute.
There was a toddler in the girls Diaper Dash who was motivated through the race by her mother backing up in front of her with a bottle.
In a older girls group, one of the under 10 year old ones, a girl did the race in a four wheeled walker.
She started out running but then heard the crowd roar and stopped to look around. Her family was yelling at her to keep going and she would run for several meters and then stop and look around again. She did that a few times but did finish. Several young girls who looked like her sisters then smothered her with huge hugs.
I told Tulasi that that was going to make the highlight reel and in the 10 minute montage they showed at the Closing Ceremony, sure enough there she was.
For those who can’t get enough of this stuff, here is a group blog from a sorority, Phi Sigma Sigma Foundation Blog - Aiming Higher. They volunteered as a group to help keep the Games running. It has a lot of posts from several perspectives that if you are really interested in the Games are worth reading through. It is also an example about how an event can be be experienced dynamically by making a group blog.
Here is a taste:
“One thing that happened today was we met an amazing athlete, Dan from Philadelphia. Dan was in the 500 freestyle race in the swimming competitions and seemed to be struggling to finish. He had 8 laps to go and needed some encouragement.
“Every Phi Sig at the games stood at the end of his row along with his four children and wife and cheered as loud as we possibly could. One of the other swimmers in the lane next to him started to swim alongside him to help him along and then after 2 laps the other three swimmers who were done came to the other lane next to him and all four of those men swam alongside Dan to get him through his laps. I have never experienced such an amazing thing in my life!”




