Transplant Games 2008 Highlights

The games haven’t even started yet; today was just the first half-day of registration and setting up our Mayo Clinic booth.

I heard some great stories, both from organ recipients and from donor families (as well as some from families in which one member had donated to another) and we uploaded them to the Mayo Clinic YouTube channel.

Here’s one that was especially touching for me, because it involved a Dad (about my age, or maybe a bit younger) with five kids (I have six), none of whom had been born when he received his donated kidney.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97nMz3MdaHo]

Here’s a photo taken on the medal stand in the Mayo Clinic booth, of Katie Schnell and her father, who was her kidney donor.

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You also can listen to Kati tell her story on YouTube.

There were lots of other moving and inspirational stories, and you can see them by clicking here (more will be uploaded soon) or by searching for transplantgames08 on YouTube. More videos will be shot and uploaded tomorrow, and I hope others who are staying for the entire games will shoot videos, and upload photos, and write blog posts giving them the transplantgames08 tag, so we can see and hear more about the difference transplant can make.