Area woman gets bone marrow transplant from North Dakota donor
The first helicopter landing atop OhioHealth Mansfield Hospital
The first helicopter landing atop OhioHealth Mansfield Hospital was May 12, 2022.
Zach Tuggle, Mansfield News Journal
When Jill Summerton found out she had a matching donor just as life felt overwhelming, it gave her immense relief.
But not all patients are so lucky, said Andrea Ross, a clinical educator for OhioHealth Mansfield Hospital.
“There are 3,000 people in Ohio on the waiting list for all organs,” Ross said. “There is a huge need.”
Some of those patients, like Summerton, can be helped by living donors. The rest of the donations come from families who are committed to ensuring life goes on.
One donor can save eight lives and enhance the lives of 75 more, according to organdonor.gov, the website of the Health Resources & Services Administration.
“There are 100,000 people waiting in the U.S. right now for a transplant,” Ross said. “Approximately 17 times a day, a person dies for lack of an available organ.”
Not every recipient finds a match
There could be more organ and tissue donations made every year, she noted, if people knew more about the process.
For the majority of Ohioans, the decision to become a donor or not is made at the BMV in only a few seconds.
“It’s kind of an off-handed question when you’re getting your license,” Ross said. “I think that’s probably the only time you hear about it.”
Even inside the hospital, the topic is rarely discussed.
“Nurses are not allowed to suggest or talk about organ donation with families at all unless the family brings it up,” Ross said. “Even then, we’re supposed to kind of defer them and tell them we’ll get a hold of somebody.”
Roughly 60% of Ohioans are registered as organ donors, but there so many variables — mostly body size and blood type — that not every hopeful recipient finds a match.
“There’s a whole lot of screening,” Ross said. “A lot of things have to match up … some patients are harder to find a match for than others.”
Even someone who might have a disease can be a donor for someone who has the same disease.
And a person’s health and fitness level do not preclude them from donating. Everyone can help others.
“You shouldn’t say ‘I’m not healthy enough to be a donor’ or ‘I’m too old to be a donor,'” Ross said.
For donors who are deceased, the process is discreet and respectful, and will not be visible afterward.
“They take them exactly like they would take an organ out of a live person,” Ross said. “They sew the patient up exactly the same.”
Families still have a say in the process after their loved one has passed in case they do not agree with the decision to donate.
Anyone who would like to learn more about organ donation can ask their family doctor.
Should someone decide to donate, they can update their status by visiting lifelineofohio.org.
“You can register online and it won’t show up on your license,” Ross said.
‘The phone rang and they had hope’
Waiting is not easy for terminal patients or their families.
The nurse remembers one woman who had waited so long that she was convinced she would never get a transplant.
“They were planning what life would look like without them,” Ross said.
She explained to her children that she was going to die. She told them to make sure they went to college. She told them she hoped they found the right person to marry.
“It’s really sad. It’s hard,” Ross said. “And then the phone rang and they had hope.”
Not everyone receives their donation, though. A few patients never have the chance to get their affairs in order before time runs out.
“Some of them are so sick they can’t leave the hospital for months because they’re waiting,” Ross said. “They’re on life support or artificial means to keep them going, especially people that need a heart.”
Living donors can help a lot of patients like Summerton, whose body required a unique match before she could receive a bone marrow transplant during her cancer treatments.
Doctors tried everyone in her family first, but even her children were only 50% matches.
“Then they found me a perfect match,” Summerton said.
She received five treatments of the donor’s bone marrow without any idea who they might have been.
“I couldn’t know who she was for a year,” Summerton said. “So I had this perfect stranger somewhere and it could have been from any country.”
It turned out to be a 31-year-old mother of two from South Dakota.
Oddly enough, the woman had signed up to be a donor 14 years earlier, but never heard anything further because of how rare her specifications were.
“She goes, ‘I actually forgot about it,'” Summerton said. “But she still wanted to donate.”
The two talked about the process over the phone a year after the treatments had finished.
It’s a rare treat for a recipient to speak directly to their donor, but nearly all of them get some closure after the procedure.
“They’re so grateful for them. They know what sacrifice that was for that family,” Ross said. “They’ve met the families, they exchange letters and pictures. They can become pretty close.”
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