Moving story, poem highlight National Donate Life Month flag-raising in Charles City

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

A story of a generous gift highlighted a flag-raising ceremony Monday to mark the beginning of National Donate Life Month.

The event drew about 50 people to the Floyd County Medical Center, where they heard Marilyn Venz of Charles City tell how her husband, Ron, received just about the best birthday present ever, less than six weeks ago.

Marilyn Venz said Ron was diagnosed with kidney problems in early 2017, and by the end of that year he was placed on the list for a kidney transplant. The staff at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, told him the wait for a kidney from a deceased donor could be three to five years, and in the meantime he would probably have to start regular dialysis.

In May last year, after Ron had gone through testing to see if he was healthy enough for a transplant, Marilyn decided to give him one of her own kidneys.

“I knew he didn’t want to do dialysis and neither of us wanted that to happen,” she said. “So I thought, I’m going to donate a kidney. I had this big plan. I knew it was going to work.”

She began the process to qualify as a donor, but was turned down.

“I was crushed,” she said.

“Well, God works in mysterious ways. He worked through Pastor Leeper’s sermon one Sunday in August of 2018,” Venz said, referring to the Rev. Russ Leeper, pastor of St. John Lutheran Church in Charles City.

“His words were, in a nutshell, ‘What can you do to help someone else? What will be your legacy?,’” she said.

“Our dear friend, Bev Selvig, took the words to heart. She turned to her husband, John, and said, ‘I know what I have to do. I want to donate a kidney to Ron.’”

Venz said Bev started the process to donate a kidney, but she, too, was eliminated as a living donor.

“After that, her husband, John, decided he was going to go to bat for us, and he went up to Rochester and he went through all the testing and all the procedures to donate a kidney,” Venz said, adding that Bev and John worked together to make sure John would meet the health criteria to qualify.

“The day finally came,” Venz said. “Jan. 31, Mayo Clinic called John that he was going to be accepted as a donor for Ron. … We were so excited and so happy and so grateful to them.”

They told Mayo they wanted to perform the procedure on the earliest available date, and were told that would be Feb. 20.

“Which happened to be Ron’s birthday,” Venz said. “What kind of a better present could you get than the gift of a kidney from your best friend?”

The surgery “went perfectly” for Ron and John, she said. John went home two days later, and Ron and Marilyn stayed in Rochester for almost a month, much of that time at the Gift of Life Transplant House.

“We met so many wonderful people there and heard so many stories,” Venz said. “It wasn’t just kidneys — it was livers, pancreas, stem cells, hearts — it was everything. We met some amazing people and heard some amazing stories and saw firsthand how it changed their lives.

“Now, Ron is feeling great, and it has changed our lives. We look forward to celebrating many more years together with our friends and family, and because God has blessed us and given us friends like John and Bev, we want to publicly thank them for everything they have done,” Marilyn Vens said.

“John and Bev, you will always be our heroes. And we want to thank you for giving Ron the best gift of all, the gift of life. We love you guys,” she said.

Kim Isakson, of Floyd County Medical Center, led the event Monday.

“We want to recognize the people in our community that have donated, family members that have donated, recipients and also those people who are waiting on the waiting list, because it is a long list,” Isakson said.

She read a poem about Logan Luft, the Charles City teenager who was killed in an ATV accident in July 2017. The story of Luft, who had indicated his desire to be an organ donor, how the donation of his organs touched many lives, and the efforts of his family, especially his parents, Lenny and Wendy, to become advocates for organ donation, has touched the state and beyond.

The Lufts are currently advocating for a new state law to allow people to indicate their choice to be an organ donor on Iowa hunting and fishing licenses as well as driver’s licenses. The law is likely to pass this session.

Isakson, who was Logan’s aunt, also listed some statistics on organ donation.

Although in 2018 there were 36,500 Americans who were saved by organ donation, and nearly 6,900 people gave a living donation, there are still almost 114,000 people in the U.S. who are waiting for an organ transplant, 600 of them in Iowa.

“On average, 20 people die each day while waiting,” Isakson said.

She urged everyone to join the majority of Iowans who have registered as organ donors.

“Make your wishes known by signing up online at iowadonornetwork.org, or check the box when you apply or renew your driver’s license, and possibly real soon when you purchase your hunting and fishing license,” Isakson said.

“After you have done that, I encourage you to please share your decision with your family members. … Make sure your family knows what your wishes are.”

As part of the ceremony, a Donate Life flag was raised under the American flag on the hospital flagpole, while John Morris of Charles City played “Amazing Grace” on the bagpipes.

Isakson concluded by saying, “Today, we call attention to the great need for lifesaving and life-healing transplants that still exist. We honor the many generous individuals and their families who have chosen to share life through donation, whether living or in death.

“We celebrate all lives that are saved and healed through these incredible gifts,” she said. “Also, we want to continue to pray for those who patiently wait, every day, for their phone call.”