Ana Lopez's Hero Walk at RWJ University Hospital

A hero walk is a ceremonial event in a hospital to celebrate a patient who is donating their organ. In this video, Ana Lopez is being honored with a hero walk at RWJ University Hospital as she is being transported to the procedure where she donates her kidney to her son who suffers from stage 5 Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). The transcript of the video follows.

Video

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Video Transcript

Anne Ellis-Kosty, RN:

Today we're going celebrate the gift of life. We have a living donor who's donating her kidney to a family member and we are all gathering this morning to cheer her on, give her support, show her how much we admire her heroism.

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Dr. Ronald Pelletier:

We're going to remove the left kidney from Anna Gomez. We'll do that laparoscopically, hand assisted.  The total procedure takes about an hour and a half about two hours of time she'll spend in the operating room.

Ana Gomez:

I like to give a life to somebody else.  You know I know it's for my son now, but you know, if you can do it, I believe people have to try to help somebody else.

Dr. Ronald Pelletier:‍

My role is to do the donor surgery, that is to remove the kidney and give it to Dr. Bongu, my partner who will then take that kidney prepare it and then re-implant it in Anna's son.

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Dr. Advaith Bongu:

I'm one of the transplant surgeons - I'll be on the recipient side. What I'm going to be doing is once I receive the kidney from the donor side, I'm going to be implanting it in the recipient. We are really excited today to do our hero walk really to draw attention to the wonderful thing that the donor is doing for the recipient.

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Dr. Ronald Pelletier:‍

The great thing for the recipient is he gets a very high quality kidney. He doesn't have to wait the five to six years that it would take to get a deceased donor kidney here in New Jersey.

Anne Ellis-Kosty, RN:‍

As a kidney transplant recipient, myself.  I feel really important to stress living donation. My sister 15 years ago donated her kidney to me. I remember the day as if it were yesterday and I am so excited that we have this going on right now. It's important to stress living donation because there's not enough living donors and, you know people die on the wait list and I was one of the lucky ones who was able to get my kidney early on. This is one of the true selfless acts of humanity. It's an awesome thing and all living donors are seriously heroes in my eyes.

Announcer:  

RWJBarnabasHealth. Let's be healthy together.

References

‍Wikipedia

‍RWJBarnabasHealth

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About the Author

Monica McCarthy has bachelors in Political Science and Criminal Justice from Central Washington University.  A majority of her career was spent as a political consultant.   She currently works at KidneyLuv as a staff writer.

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Patient Education Disclaimer

This material is for informational purposes only. It does not replace the advice or counsel of a doctor or health care professional. KidneyLuv makes every effort to provide information that is accurate and timely, but makes no guarantee in this regard. You should consult with, and rely only on the advice of, your physician or health care professional.

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