November 26, 2024 • 35 mins
In this episode, Anthony Cernera, a three-time living organ donor, opens up about his transformative journey of giving and personal healing. His story began with a simple Facebook post that sparked a deep desire to help others, leading him to donate a portion of his liver, kidney, and stem cells. These selfless acts not only changed the lives of his recipients but also had a profound impact on Anthony's own mental health, helping him navigate struggles with depression and addiction.
Anthony shares his powerful connections with his recipients, including Lance, his kidney recipient, and a leukemia patient in California, and how these bonds have supported his commitment to sobriety. He emphasizes the role of support systems and the importance of being transparent during the donor evaluation process. This episode highlights how service and connection can be healing, providing a sense of purpose and belonging, which Anthony has found through both organ donation and his involvement in recovery work.
Listen in for an uplifting reminder of how kindness and selflessness can create positive change, not only in the lives of recipients but also for the donors themselves. This episode is a great source of hope and inspiration for kidney donors who may have to jump through some extra hoops due to their mental health history.
Connect with Laurie Lee
GiftWorks
Three Time Living Donor Hopes to Inspire Others to Donate
Anthony Cernera in Men’s Health
Fairfield Man an Organ Donor Three Times Over
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Anthony (00:00):
I think people at a transplant center understand why
people like me, who strugglewith addiction and with
depression, really need meaning,purpose and hope in their life.
Whoa, I just want to feel thesunshine.
Laurie (00:24):
I just want to feel the sunshine.
Whoa Hello, and welcome back toDonor Diaries, a podcast that
explores the transformativepower of living organ donation
transformative power of livingorgan donation.
In today's episode, I'm joinedby Anthony Cernera, a three-time
(00:53):
living organ donor, publicspeaker, semi-professional
skydiver and former director ofphilanthropy at St Vincent's
Medical Center, who recentlystarted his second career in
psychotherapy and mental healthcounseling.
Anthony is going to share hisfascinating donation stories and
his deeply personal journeywith mental health.
Becoming a living donorrequires you to be both mentally
and physically fit, and anentire team of professionals is
dedicated to ensuring you're ina good place to donate.
(01:14):
Anthony opens up about how heused his donation journeys as a
way to thrive and find a renewedsense of purpose.
This episode is truly atestament to resilience and hope
, reminding us that, even if thepath to donation includes extra
hurdles which it does for many,many donors the rewards can be
life-changing, not just for therecipient, but for the donor as
(01:38):
well.
Welcome to Donor Diaries,anthony.
I'm so excited to have you as aguest today.
Anthony (01:43):
Thank you, it's an honor to be here.
Laurie (01:45):
And you have a really interesting status if you want
to call it that in the organdonation world.
Can you tell us why you're abit different than the other
kidney donors who've been onthis podcast?
Anthony (01:56):
Yeah, I hit the kind of like donor lottery.
So, like a growing number of us, I am a double donor.
I was able to both donate asectional liver and a kidney.
But where I got really luckywas in 2017, I also matched
through the bone marrow registryand was able to do stem cells
for a leukemia patient.
So there's a small group ofdouble donors, but there's even
(02:19):
a smaller group of us who havefound a way to figure out how to
be a third donor, and somewomen are donating eggs.
There's a lot of sort ofcreative ways people are finding
that third donation, but it'svery hard to find a match
through the stem cell, throughthe bone marrow registry, and I
got lucky and was able toconnect with somebody through
that.
Laurie (02:39):
Wow, truly incredible.
So, first and foremost, thankyou and congratulations.
That's an amazing thing to haveserved humankind with three
donations and all anonymousdonations.
Right, you didn't know any ofthe people that you were
donating to that they know whoneeds the donation the best, but
(03:07):
ultimately not anonymous.
Anthony (03:08):
I'd love to talk about that in a second, but I've
gained three really amazingfriends.
I mean, these relationshipsthat I've been able to develop
with these extraordinary humanbeings have been a really
wonderful gift.
Laurie (03:20):
Sounds like a nice cherry on top.
Anthony (03:22):
Absolutely.
Laurie (03:23):
So in what order did you do these three donations?
Anthony (03:45):
every morning I would meditate, set these beautiful,
loving intentions for how I wasgoing to make the world a better
place, and then signed on toFacebook, of all things, and saw
my friend Wendy talk about shewas going to donate one of her
kidneys to her best friend's son, and she had this little
throwaway line at the end,something along the lines of you
know how could I not do thisthing?
That would only minorlyinconvenience me and it would,
(04:06):
you know, save somebody else'slife.
And you know, being a bit of acontrarian, I wanted to, like,
immediately prove her wrong.
Like you absolutely have tohave two kidneys to live, why
else would you have two of them?
You must be in a constant stateof medical crisis without your
second kidney.
So I started doing someGoogling so I could tell Wendy
(04:26):
that she was wrong, that thiswas not going to be a minor
inconvenience, that this wasactually a terrible mistake she
was about to make Terrible ideaand I discovered almost
immediately what any of us wholook into organ donation is is.
Our medical providers areextraordinary human beings.
They've really worked out thekinks of these things.
Organ donation is safe.
(04:46):
Kidney donation is common.
It's about as close as you canget to an outpatient procedure.
So many of us are out within 24hours of a surgery and, as a
Buddhist who would start everyday asking himself how he was
going to make a world a betterplace, I was suddenly confronted
(05:07):
with a question because ofWendy's Facebook post that I had
never really anticipated havingto answer.
Could I be one of those peoplewho would do something like that
?
And, laurie, I had so much feararound the potential of of the
surgery.
I just there was somethingabout anesthesia the whole the
idea of going under it wasintimidating.
(05:30):
Before I did it the first timeand I wrestled with this for
weeks I had a really beautifulkind of like the universe
nudging me in a direction.
I took a job doing someconsulting work for Northwell
Health at the end of 2015.
So I'm like, two months intothis, like, ooh, I really was
this good person that I'mstriving to be and I could do
(05:53):
this donation without any realdownside but like, oh, I've got
the fear.
I'm kind of fronting.
I was kind of like waffling onthis issue for six, seven weeks.
I started doing a littleconsulting work for Northwell
Health and the office which Iwas going to provide my
consulting services.
I had to walk in through thedialysis center and I was
(06:16):
confronted with every morningfor a week having my meditation
who do I want to be in thisworld?
Like, yeah, what am I going todo that's going to help somebody
today walk into a dialysiscenter, knowing seeing the
suffering that goes along withthat kind of medical
intervention and knowing that Ihad the ability to do something
(06:36):
about it.
It was.
It was a beautiful, beautifulway of like the universe sort of
conspiring to get me to do thisthing.
Laurie (06:43):
So the universe was saying yeah, and if you forget,
you can walk through here againtomorrow and we'll remind you
again.
Anthony (06:50):
It's jumping up and down and waving flags in my face
and setting off sirens andfireworks.
I couldn't have.
So I ended up making mydonation through Northwell.
Whoever was my intended firstrecipient died and I don't know
if it was a man or a woman, Idon't know if it was a child.
It was a very weird form ofgrief to have for a couple of
(07:12):
weeks imagined kind of goingthrough this testing and working
through some of the anxiety andfear associated with the
buildup to the donation, to thenfind out that that person
didn't live long enough for thesurgery.
It was a tough loss and Ididn't have great social
supports because I was trying todo this quiet thing to lean on.
(07:35):
And then I didn't know how toprocess a grief that didn't have
a name and a face and astoryline to it.
I was reassigned and 10 dayslater ended up making my kidney
donation.
And then I don't know if it'sworth pausing here and kind of
commenting on any of therecovery, but the kidney
(07:55):
donation was extraordinary.
I wasn't even taking Tylenolfive days after the surgery.
I was running three weeks afterand I, a semi-professional
skydiver I jumped out of my nextairplane 27 days after the
kidney donation.
I was shocked at how quickly Iwas back into the swing of my
(08:16):
regular life.
Laurie (08:17):
And so, less than a month later, you're skydiving.
And then what happened next?
That made you think I'm goingto take this a step further.
Anthony (08:25):
So this is just another stroke of the universe
looking out for me.
So I actually didn't have avery positive experience
donating the kidney and if youhad asked me two, three, four,
five months afterwards if Iwould do it again, I would have
absolutely said no,unequivocally, without a doubt.
The problem for me of beinganonymous is this debate.
(08:45):
I work in nonprofit fundraising.
Every once in a while somebodywill say oh, you know, there's
no altruism Like people just dothings because you know they get
something out of it.
And even if it's just feelinggood, you know that somehow I
think, almost as if to impugnacts of generosity we say that
because you're getting something, you know, a feeling of good
(09:05):
out of it that somehow cheapensit in a way.
I think of it a little bitdifferently.
I think that human beings arewe're thinking, perceiving,
learning machines, right, we'reout there, kind of sensing our
way around the world, and whenwe do good it feels good because
we are accurately perceivingand sensing what it is in the
(09:26):
world.
And by doing my organ donationwithout either the social
validation that comes from yourfriends and family really being
able to celebrate this act ofkindness and being able to enjoy
that experience with you andthen to really even more
impactfully remove yourself fromgetting to see the impact that
(09:47):
the donation makes bytransforming somebody's life.
I had chosen to go about makingmy donation, so I didn't learn
(10:08):
or grow as a result of thedonation.
I just kind of had thisexperience.
It hurt for a little while andthen I went back to life as
normal and it was like, well,that was a lot of effort for
what felt like at the timenothing.
Laurie (10:20):
So what happened, where you decided to go on and do this
again?
Anthony (10:25):
After 11 years of being in the bone marrow
registry, I got a phone call outof the blue and you know a good
ways.
A year and a half out from thekidney donation.
I was a match woman.
All I knew was a female inCalifornia who was leukemia
patient who needed stem cellsafter her treatment, and they
explain the asparifis not greatwith pronunciation.
(10:47):
It's basically like a longblood donation or anybody who's
donated plasma at a blood bankknows what it's like.
You sit somewhere for three,four hours hooked up to a
machine.
You go home afterwards and thatsounded easy enough.
I was perfectly happy to do it,and the stem cell donation was
so easy that a year later, inthe spring of 2018, when I got a
(11:09):
phone call back from them totell me that my recipient was
doing well and that she wouldlove to connect for a phone call
and that their policy would bethe match was, they waited for a
year for a positive outcomebefore making a patient and
donor connection.
I literally didn't remember,when they called back a year
later, what they were referringto, because the stem cell
(11:30):
donation was just such an easyprocess.
It sounds awful, but I hadliterally forgotten I had even
done it and I had this totallyunexpected later that afternoon
conversation with Jill Tracy,who was my stem cell recipient,
and she shared pictures of herdogs who she was now allergic to
, because, like me, I'm allergicto my pets and you hand off
(11:52):
your immune system to somebody,you give them your allergies.
So she has my pet allergies nowand I had a good laugh over
that and got to hear about whatit meant to her to be able to
continue to be a presence in herchildren and her
grandchildren's life thanks torecovery after her cancer
treatment.
And it was incredibly rewardingthat phone call.
(12:12):
I was in the timing again, theuniverse kind of like looking
out for me, maybe when Icouldn't myself.
I was not in a great placemanaging my depression at that
particular moment and I had alsovery recently relapsed after
six years of continuous sobrietyfrom drugs and alcohol.
So I was in a pretty dark placewhen I got Jill's phone call
(12:35):
and it was so hope-inspiring toknow that there was just this
really positive story out thereand then I was a small part of
it.
It was really rewarding and sowhen I got off the phone with
her I emailed my originaltransplant center Every couple
of months, my kidney recipient,lance, would reach out and say
(12:57):
that he wanted to connect and toget to know me, and I had
always denied the request, sortof staying with the anonymity,
and I decided it was time tomeet Lance and Lori.
I thought the conversation withJill was beautiful.
The conversation with Lance waseven better.
He was this guy who was onlyjust a few years older than me
(13:17):
who told me a story aboutimmigrating here from Jamaica
and getting to start this lifeand he would regularly go back
to travel to see his family andbecause of dialysis and his
mother's illness, she hadn'tbeen able to come out and see
him for a few years and hewasn't able to travel to Jamaica
anymore.
And he had actually had, a fewdays before the kidney donation
and a conversation with hismother that he thought was going
(13:39):
to be his last, and he told meabout filling up 20 suitcases
full of clothes and donationsfrom his church and flying to
Jamaica for the first time afterhis kidney transplant and
getting to see his mom and toget to feel like he could
contribute back to his communityagain.
And it's a little hard to talkabout without crying.
(14:00):
You know the thing aboutdepression and especially the
way it interacts with addiction.
Laura is so easy to buy intothe narrative that we're not
good enough that we're hopeless.
The world would be a betterplace without us go back to
(14:29):
being who Lance is in the worldto be the man who is a kind and
generous father and whoorganizes these donations for
his community and brings so muchprosperity and joy into his
hometown.
My desire to have beenanonymous and kind of like work
on some of this ego stuff deniedme the joy of getting to be a
part of Lance's life and to feelstrengthened by some of the
good that he does in the world.
(14:50):
That was really helpful.
I wasn't probably in the worstplace I've ever been in 2018,
but I was not in a great placetwo years into a relapse after a
long stint of sobriety, and itwas really helpful.
Those two conversations werereally helpful and kind of
changing that narrative in mymind.
You know like actually theworld is a little bit of a
(15:11):
better place with me in it andyou know, maybe if I keep doing
a little bit more good, I willbe filled with hope and optimism
that the future could be alittle bit better.
And that started me on thedeliberation process for what
did I need to do to get healthyand well so I could also be a
liver donor.
(15:31):
So led me back to recovery, gotme exercising and losing weight
and quit drinking again and wasable to do a third donation.
That this time I didn't do soprivately and got to celebrate
with family and friends and whenI was scared before the surgery
I could lean on people.
Celebrate with family andfriends and when I was scared
before the surgery I could leanon people and when I was going
through the recovery which ishard liver recovery is hard I
(15:57):
had a lot of people to love meand support me and help me
through that.
And really got to have theprivileged chance of getting to
have a third new friend, abrother, in my life.
That has given me a littleresume.
That makes it very hard to buythe narrative that the
depression and addiction has inthe back of our minds right.
It's really hard to look atkind of this portfolio of good
(16:18):
deeds that I've been luckyenough to be a part of and say
you know what the depression'sright?
Laurie (16:25):
Wow.
Would you be open to sharingmore about your journey to
sobriety and your own mentalhealth challenges and how that's
affected your life?
Anthony (16:33):
Yeah, I am a product of a loving, safe home with a
great community.
We had enough food.
We had good roof over our head.
I had loving family members andsiblings.
I had no trauma.
But when I was 10 years old Iwas sad and it didn't make sense
as to why I was sad.
By the time I was 13, I wasseeking treatment for depression
(16:57):
and my teenage years were rough, but they got really bad when I
discovered drinking.
I was just about 17 years oldwhen I had my first alcoholic
beverage and immediately gotsick, threw up on myself and
decided that I had found thesolution to my depression.
It was the first time that Ihad felt something akin to
(17:20):
comfortable in my own skin in afew years and unfortunately,
because of the genetic makeup Ihave, there is some addiction
that runs in my family.
I went from having never drankto I drank until I blacked out,
drunk every day for six monthsas a young man.
I mean I was just turning 17.
It's kind of shocking to lookat in retrospect.
(17:41):
That culminated in a suicideattempt.
I was in the hospital for acouple of weeks.
It was a pretty close call asuicide attempt.
I was in the hospital for acouple of weeks.
It was a pretty close call.
It really took me a good sevenyears after that to get well
enough to start functioning as asociety, did not go to college,
was in and out of living in myparents' basement in my early
20s, drank every single day.
(18:01):
I was 25 years old.
It was 2007 when I was luckyenough to have gotten desperate
enough to ask for help and had afamily friend who was a member
of AA called her up.
She sent two of her malefriends over.
They picked me up and went toan AA meeting and I, thanks to
this amazing fellowship ofvolunteers and other people who
(18:24):
were in recovery, was able toput together a much better life.
But what a 12-step programtaught me was something so much
more important about my healthand well-being than just putting
the booze down.
I did absolutely need to stopdrinking.
That is a central fact of mymental health and wellness.
But I think in part of thereason.
(18:46):
I think there's some geneticpredisposition in me towards
addiction.
But this is the depression thatreally gives life, that I think
that pairs up with my addiction.
That makes it really dangerous.
And what I learned in a 12 stepprogram?
12 steps all about you getlucky enough to get your life
together and now you got to goand be of service to somebody
(19:07):
else, make somebody else's lifebetter.
I had been such a mess for the10 years before I got sober that
I couldn't think of anybodyelse.
Maybe I was a good person, Idon't know.
I don't think I was a badperson.
I certainly was struggling, butI was struggling too much to be
able to think of other people.
I think the first time I everdid any volunteering that wasn't
(19:28):
my parents being kind enough todrag me to something try to get
a little experience of it as ayoung person was because of a
12-step program and completelyreoriented my life.
I started working in nonprofitfundraising.
Day job was oriented to helpingpeople.
I worked in service andrecovery and that did more to
treat the depression than reallyanything else could, because it
(19:50):
changes that narrative.
I'm connected to people, so Ifeel supported, I'm not alone
and I'm making the world abetter place, which gives me a
little bit of a sense of hopefor a better future, which I
think is a really importantanecdote to depression.
Laurie (20:04):
It sounds like you managed your depression by
finding ways to connect toothers, and whether that be
through AA or giving awaymultiple parts of your body, you
kept finding that connectionand it sounds like this has very
much become a lifestyle for you.
Is that accurate?
Anthony (20:23):
That reality that I think what's so sad about
addiction is it cuts us off fromthe people closest to us right
we hurt the people we love,either from they just hate
watching us do what we're doingto ourself.
We can be not our best selvesaround them when we're
struggling with our addictions.
Addiction is really hard on thewhole family, and being able to
(20:44):
mend those relationships, tocreate repair, to reconnect with
those folks we know all theevidence indicates that it makes
people less likely to relapse.
But we also know that itfacilitates a broader amount of
healing too, and for me that wasdefinitely true.
You nailed it.
For me it is about connection.
How are we sharing these piecesof ourselves with each other to
(21:05):
make our lives and their livesequally better?
That there's no separationbetween those two things Me
getting healthier, me quittingdrinking made my whole family's
life better.
My family's life being bettermade my life better.
There are indicate that there'seven a separation between those
two things is, I think, to kindof have a weird view of what a
(21:26):
family actually is.
Laurie (21:27):
I think to kind of have a weird view of what a family
actually is.
Transplant centers handlepeople with mental health
challenges carefully during thedonor evaluation and I
understand this is for goodreason.
They don't want someone'smental health to be negatively
impacted when they donate.
Can you describe yourexperience as a donor navigating
your evaluations?
Anthony (21:47):
This was something that both of my transplant
centers looked at very carefullybecause of my history right.
So I had had a hospitalizationin my teenage years.
It was a consequence of asuicide attempt.
But you know, going into thekidney donation I had been sober
for over six years, so theywere pretty confident in that.
But what my evaluation lookedlike was more than just your
normal sort of standard checkthe box psyche eval.
(22:09):
They wanted a letter from mytherapist, who I had a
multi-year relationship with mymed provider, my psychiatrist,
who provides my antidepressant.
I think that was comparable inboth rounds the kidney and the
liver donation.
And then there were, especiallyfor altruistic donors.
There's always a couple oflayers of conversations, I think
(22:31):
a little just wanting to makesure that people who are doing a
donation not motivated by adirect family member or friend,
that they're in a healthy placeand that their motivations for
doing this thing that carries alittle bit of risk right, it's
not a completely risk-free thing, so there'll be some kind of
psych evaluation.
(22:51):
I think mine were a little bitmore extensive and detailed than
other people, but that gave meconfidence that the medical
professionals at the heart ofthese procedures they're not
willing to make one person'slife worse off to help another,
and I think, with somebody whomight initially say, ooh geez,
that's a complicated mentalhealth history, are you really
sure you should be doing this?
I think people at a transplantcenter understand why people
(23:13):
like me who struggle withaddiction and with depression,
really need meaning, purpose andhope in their life, and that
both of the donations helped me,and so I really felt like the
evaluation process wasrespectful of my autonomy.
But ultimately, what Iappreciated about the mental
health staff at sure, if this isa safe step for anything, how
(23:47):
do we help him get into thisprocess so he can get the
benefits that come from gettingto do a little good?
Laurie (23:54):
It sounds like you had an open-minded team.
Anthony (23:57):
Yeah, I mean, life is messy, right and it's hard, and
I think say, as the person intraining in this field,
addiction is not a hopelessstate.
There is a lot of recovery andwhen you look at recovery from
substance use addiction incomparison to other medical
diagnoses, our recovery ratesare better than cancer, diabetes
(24:19):
, you can go down a whole longlist of chronic illnesses that
the chances for sustainedrecovery and wellness after
substance use are.
We have, quite frankly, betternumbers, especially once you get
to a year of continuous absence, if that's one's personal goal
in their relationship to drugsand alcohol, Our outcomes are
great.
So I think the healthcaresystem, if you look at addiction
(24:44):
without stigma, if you look atit as, is this person healthy?
Are they connected and workingon their mental health?
Are they prioritizing theirrecovery?
Is that an important part oftheir life?
The same way that we can manageother symptoms and allow for
donations, mental illness andmental disorders is just another
one that we can respectfullytake into account.
Laurie (25:05):
Yeah, absolutely, one that we can, you know,
respectfully take into account.
Yeah, absolutely.
And look at the big picture ofthe person and their whole story
, and you know them as amultifaceted human being and not
just somebody with depressionor a history of alcoholism.
But looking at the wholepicture, yeah.
Do you have any advice forsomebody who's trying to donate,
who might have to jump throughsome extra hoops as they kind of
(25:27):
define their mental healthhistory to a transplant team?
Anthony (25:33):
Yeah, just be prepared for a little extra questions.
Honesty is the best policy.
They want what's best for you.
Take the cautions seriously.
I would not have, in 2018, madea good liver donor.
I had been drinking again.
I needed a long bout ofcontinuous sobriety to be
(25:53):
qualified for that.
Continuous sobriety to bequalified for that.
We don't get anywhere trying tolie or hide or distort the
truth.
If there is an area for concern, if you're not going to enough
therapy or if you're not beingcompliant with your medication
regime, if you're strugglingwith substance use disorders,
use this input as an opportunityto kind of work on
(26:17):
strengthening those issues.
Lean into your treatment plans,lean on your providers, lean on
your family and friends whowant what's best for you.
Laurie (26:24):
That's excellent advice.
You know it's the transplantteam looking out for the best
interests of the donor and it'sjust.
I think patience is importantand just understanding that
they're here to help you andthat they're on your team even
if it feels like you have tojump through extra hoops.
Anthony (26:38):
Well said.
Laurie (26:40):
So let's talk a little bit about anxiety.
One thing that makes me anxiousis the thought of jumping out
of an airplane.
You don't share that with me,do you?
Anthony (26:53):
Well, I did for 11 years.
I bought my first tandem tojump out of an airplane when I
was 21 years old.
I'd always wanted to skydiveand I was so nervous the night
before my tandem skydive Ididn't set my alarm.
I knew I wasn't going.
I didn't answer the phone whenthey called, looking for me, I
just pretended like it neverhappened.
Fast forward four years laterI'm now 25 years old.
(27:13):
I'm going to jump out of anairplane for my birthday.
This time I actually got 50minutes of the 55 minute car
ride to the trip before.
I was so nervous that I pulledthe car over.
I had a couple of deep breathsto get my hands to stop shaking
enough so I could turn aroundand drive home.
I didn't even successfully makeit there.
I was 32 years old before Ifinally jumped out of my first
(27:35):
airplane.
Laurie (27:36):
Wow, that took a long time.
Anthony (27:38):
It took a long time.
I was hooked.
The second I got out of theairplane.
I was, you know, the guy wasexplaining to me how to get
licensed before we even got tothe ground.
He told me when we landed thatthere are two types of people in
the world and people who dothis once and they've checked
their bucket list item, and thenthe people for whom it becomes
a way of life.
And you know, I learned a lot,Laurie, and it was actually
(28:00):
really helpful.
There's a lot of cliches aboutskydiving, but they're cliches
because they're true.
It's safe.
It's outrageously safe.
It's actually 22 times safer tojump out of an airplane than it
is to get pregnant.
If you look at comparablefatality rates, it is safer than
kidney and liver donation.
Actually, as I was working up tomaking my kidney donation, it
(28:23):
was what I learned aboutmanaging risk through skydiving
that helped me understand how toapproach something that I was
scared of, that you can quantifyrisk, you can decide what your
risk tolerance is, and then youjust have to work with the
emotions of fear.
Fear is a great safety instinct.
Fear has a default setting thatis supposed to be overly
(28:45):
protective, is to hold us back,but you can build a mental model
for something and you canapproach it in a safe way, even
when it's dangerous.
And yeah, skydiving gave me achance to start working that
muscle is dangerous, even whenit and yeah, skydiving gave me a
chance to kind of start workingthat muscle.
That cliche of, like you know,there's no courage in the
absence of fear right, we dothings that are brave and
courageous because we're scared,not because we're not scared.
(29:07):
I was terrified of skydivingand I was for the first like 100
or 200 jumps, I think.
I was nervous every time for awhile there.
Laurie (29:13):
That's a lot of dives to be nervous on.
Would you consider it alifestyle too?
I had a friend recently whosaid oh, so-and-so is exploring
the double donor lifestyle and Ikind of chuckled when I read
the text.
But I think it's kind of true.
There seems to be a culture ofpeople who are sharing multiple
organs, doing multiple donations.
(29:34):
What do you think?
Is it a lifestyle?
Anthony (29:36):
Interesting.
I don't know if I thought aboutit as a lifestyle, because part
of the reason I value thefriendships with my fellow
double donors is that there is apassion and a zeal for life
that is palpable.
I feel like what connects me tomy friends who are double donors
has less to do with the organdonation.
It has more to do with a lifephilosophy and when we see the
(29:58):
donor athlete groups, that's agroup of folks that they're
hardworking, they're disciplined, they love to have fun with
their friends, doing somethingthat's good for the world and
healthy for their bodies.
At the same time, there's atheme there that the organ
donation kind of makes sense,almost as a symptom of this core
positive thing so you can be apart of the community, you can
(30:19):
advocate, you can help educate.
These are service-oriented,connection-oriented people
trying to live authentic andmeaningful lives first, and
organ donation is a part of it.
I don't know if I would thinkof many of the people as like oh
yeah, they're organ donors andthat's the lifestyle.
So I think I flipped.
The orientation Is that fair.
Laurie (30:38):
Yeah, that is fair.
I recently had a guest who saidwe were talking about
connectedness and he saidsomething to the effect of he
feels that organ donors oftenhave that connection to the
whole and therefore, when he'saround other organ donors and
they're feeling that connectionto the whole and he's feeling
that he feels connected to them.
Anthony (30:59):
That's beautiful.
Laurie (31:00):
It's the first thing we have in common, but certainly
not the last thing.
Anthony (31:04):
Yeah, that sounds right.
That captures it for me.
By choice I don't have children, but generativity knowing that
we're giving something to futuregenerations is a big part of
human beings' sense ofsatisfaction in life.
It's such a privilege to be ahuman being, to be alive.
To not pay that forward inreproducing Organ donation was a
(31:26):
way that I got to kind ofcontribute to this common
project of life.
What a privilege I understandnow telling my story that you
can overcome depression, you canovercome addiction, you can be
connected to others, you canbuild a life of meaning and
purpose.
That it's going to be hard butit's going to be worth it.
And talking about my story andthen seeing the different ways
(31:50):
that that's helped people bynormalizing, I think, mental
disorders, normalizing recovery.
It's a little bit of how I'm ofservice today and I'd like to
share this with other people.
Laurie (32:01):
I didn't know that you kind of looked at this as a way
of giving life that wasn'thaving a child, and that's
something that I certainly feelas well, and it's nice to now
meet a man who shares that, andit's a neat thing to be able to
give life without giving birth.
Well, is there anything elseyou'd like to share before we
end today?
Anthony (32:22):
Our media and our news and our social media feeds are
just filled up with all of therough stuff, and you've
collected and pulled some reallybeautiful stories through this
podcast and through the rest ofyour life's work.
You're putting a lot of goodout there and I just wanted to
say thank you for what you'redoing.
I admire it.
I think it's really important.
Laurie (32:40):
Well, thank you so much for recording with me today.
It's been fun to get to knowyou a little bit today.
Anthony (32:46):
Lori the same.
Thank you for listening to me.
I appreciate you creating aspace for it.
Laurie (32:52):
Anthony's story shows how living donation can be an
opportunity to thrive and todeepen your connection to others
, but also to yourself.
If your evaluation requires alittle extra work due to your
mental health history, try to bepatient and remember the
evaluation is designed with yourbest interests in mind, so
don't take it personally.
(33:12):
This season of Donor Diaries isproudly sponsored by GiftWorks,
an organization dedicated toempowering organ recipients and
living donors through education,advocacy and support.
By helping patients share theirjourneys and connect with
donors, giftworks ensureseveryone feels supported
throughout the transplantprocess.
(33:32):
We're honored to partner with ateam that's transforming lives,
one transplant at a time.
To learn more, visityourgiftworkscom if you're
enjoying this podcast.
Thanks for listening.
I hope you tune in next monthfor another inspiring episode.
Don't forget to follow us onfacebook to join the
conversation there, and be sureto subscribe so you know when we
(33:54):
drop a new episode.
Remember, every act of kindnesscreates ripples.
Thanks for listening and keepspreading those positive vibes.
This is Lori Lee signing off.
I just want to feel thesunshine.
(34:17):
I just want to feel thesunshine.
I share this life with you.
I share this life with you,thank you.
I think people at a transplant center understand why
people like me, who strugglewith addiction and with
depression, really need meaning,purpose and hope in their life.
Whoa, I just want to feel thesunshine.
Laurie (00:24):
I just want to feel the sunshine.
Whoa Hello, and welcome back toDonor Diaries, a podcast that
explores the transformativepower of living organ donation
transformative power of livingorgan donation.
In today's episode, I'm joinedby Anthony Cernera, a three-time
(00:53):
living organ donor, publicspeaker, semi-professional
skydiver and former director ofphilanthropy at St Vincent's
Medical Center, who recentlystarted his second career in
psychotherapy and mental healthcounseling.
Anthony is going to share hisfascinating donation stories and
his deeply personal journeywith mental health.
Becoming a living donorrequires you to be both mentally
and physically fit, and anentire team of professionals is
dedicated to ensuring you're ina good place to donate.
(01:14):
Anthony opens up about how heused his donation journeys as a
way to thrive and find a renewedsense of purpose.
This episode is truly atestament to resilience and hope
, reminding us that, even if thepath to donation includes extra
hurdles which it does for many,many donors the rewards can be
life-changing, not just for therecipient, but for the donor as
(01:38):
well.
Welcome to Donor Diaries,anthony.
I'm so excited to have you as aguest today.
Anthony (01:43):
Thank you, it's an honor to be here.
Laurie (01:45):
And you have a really interesting status if you want
to call it that in the organdonation world.
Can you tell us why you're abit different than the other
kidney donors who've been onthis podcast?
Anthony (01:56):
Yeah, I hit the kind of like donor lottery.
So, like a growing number of us, I am a double donor.
I was able to both donate asectional liver and a kidney.
But where I got really luckywas in 2017, I also matched
through the bone marrow registryand was able to do stem cells
for a leukemia patient.
So there's a small group ofdouble donors, but there's even
(02:19):
a smaller group of us who havefound a way to figure out how to
be a third donor, and somewomen are donating eggs.
There's a lot of sort ofcreative ways people are finding
that third donation, but it'svery hard to find a match
through the stem cell, throughthe bone marrow registry, and I
got lucky and was able toconnect with somebody through
that.
Laurie (02:39):
Wow, truly incredible.
So, first and foremost, thankyou and congratulations.
That's an amazing thing to haveserved humankind with three
donations and all anonymousdonations.
Right, you didn't know any ofthe people that you were
donating to that they know whoneeds the donation the best, but
(03:07):
ultimately not anonymous.
Anthony (03:08):
I'd love to talk about that in a second, but I've
gained three really amazingfriends.
I mean, these relationshipsthat I've been able to develop
with these extraordinary humanbeings have been a really
wonderful gift.
Laurie (03:20):
Sounds like a nice cherry on top.
Anthony (03:22):
Absolutely.
Laurie (03:23):
So in what order did you do these three donations?
Anthony (03:45):
every morning I would meditate, set these beautiful,
loving intentions for how I wasgoing to make the world a better
place, and then signed on toFacebook, of all things, and saw
my friend Wendy talk about shewas going to donate one of her
kidneys to her best friend's son, and she had this little
throwaway line at the end,something along the lines of you
know how could I not do thisthing?
That would only minorlyinconvenience me and it would,
(04:06):
you know, save somebody else'slife.
And you know, being a bit of acontrarian, I wanted to, like,
immediately prove her wrong.
Like you absolutely have tohave two kidneys to live, why
else would you have two of them?
You must be in a constant stateof medical crisis without your
second kidney.
So I started doing someGoogling so I could tell Wendy
(04:26):
that she was wrong, that thiswas not going to be a minor
inconvenience, that this wasactually a terrible mistake she
was about to make Terrible ideaand I discovered almost
immediately what any of us wholook into organ donation is is.
Our medical providers areextraordinary human beings.
They've really worked out thekinks of these things.
Organ donation is safe.
(04:46):
Kidney donation is common.
It's about as close as you canget to an outpatient procedure.
So many of us are out within 24hours of a surgery and, as a
Buddhist who would start everyday asking himself how he was
going to make a world a betterplace, I was suddenly confronted
(05:07):
with a question because ofWendy's Facebook post that I had
never really anticipated havingto answer.
Could I be one of those peoplewho would do something like that
?
And, laurie, I had so much feararound the potential of of the
surgery.
I just there was somethingabout anesthesia the whole the
idea of going under it wasintimidating.
(05:30):
Before I did it the first timeand I wrestled with this for
weeks I had a really beautifulkind of like the universe
nudging me in a direction.
I took a job doing someconsulting work for Northwell
Health at the end of 2015.
So I'm like, two months intothis, like, ooh, I really was
this good person that I'mstriving to be and I could do
(05:53):
this donation without any realdownside but like, oh, I've got
the fear.
I'm kind of fronting.
I was kind of like waffling onthis issue for six, seven weeks.
I started doing a littleconsulting work for Northwell
Health and the office which Iwas going to provide my
consulting services.
I had to walk in through thedialysis center and I was
(06:16):
confronted with every morningfor a week having my meditation
who do I want to be in thisworld?
Like, yeah, what am I going todo that's going to help somebody
today walk into a dialysiscenter, knowing seeing the
suffering that goes along withthat kind of medical
intervention and knowing that Ihad the ability to do something
(06:36):
about it.
It was.
It was a beautiful, beautifulway of like the universe sort of
conspiring to get me to do thisthing.
Laurie (06:43):
So the universe was saying yeah, and if you forget,
you can walk through here againtomorrow and we'll remind you
again.
Anthony (06:50):
It's jumping up and down and waving flags in my face
and setting off sirens andfireworks.
I couldn't have.
So I ended up making mydonation through Northwell.
Whoever was my intended firstrecipient died and I don't know
if it was a man or a woman, Idon't know if it was a child.
It was a very weird form ofgrief to have for a couple of
(07:12):
weeks imagined kind of goingthrough this testing and working
through some of the anxiety andfear associated with the
buildup to the donation, to thenfind out that that person
didn't live long enough for thesurgery.
It was a tough loss and Ididn't have great social
supports because I was trying todo this quiet thing to lean on.
(07:35):
And then I didn't know how toprocess a grief that didn't have
a name and a face and astoryline to it.
I was reassigned and 10 dayslater ended up making my kidney
donation.
And then I don't know if it'sworth pausing here and kind of
commenting on any of therecovery, but the kidney
(07:55):
donation was extraordinary.
I wasn't even taking Tylenolfive days after the surgery.
I was running three weeks afterand I, a semi-professional
skydiver I jumped out of my nextairplane 27 days after the
kidney donation.
I was shocked at how quickly Iwas back into the swing of my
(08:16):
regular life.
Laurie (08:17):
And so, less than a month later, you're skydiving.
And then what happened next?
That made you think I'm goingto take this a step further.
Anthony (08:25):
So this is just another stroke of the universe
looking out for me.
So I actually didn't have avery positive experience
donating the kidney and if youhad asked me two, three, four,
five months afterwards if Iwould do it again, I would have
absolutely said no,unequivocally, without a doubt.
The problem for me of beinganonymous is this debate.
(08:45):
I work in nonprofit fundraising.
Every once in a while somebodywill say oh, you know, there's
no altruism Like people just dothings because you know they get
something out of it.
And even if it's just feelinggood, you know that somehow I
think, almost as if to impugnacts of generosity we say that
because you're getting something, you know, a feeling of good
(09:05):
out of it that somehow cheapensit in a way.
I think of it a little bitdifferently.
I think that human beings arewe're thinking, perceiving,
learning machines, right, we'reout there, kind of sensing our
way around the world, and whenwe do good it feels good because
we are accurately perceivingand sensing what it is in the
(09:26):
world.
And by doing my organ donationwithout either the social
validation that comes from yourfriends and family really being
able to celebrate this act ofkindness and being able to enjoy
that experience with you andthen to really even more
impactfully remove yourself fromgetting to see the impact that
(09:47):
the donation makes bytransforming somebody's life.
I had chosen to go about makingmy donation, so I didn't learn
(10:08):
or grow as a result of thedonation.
I just kind of had thisexperience.
It hurt for a little while andthen I went back to life as
normal and it was like, well,that was a lot of effort for
what felt like at the timenothing.
Laurie (10:20):
So what happened, where you decided to go on and do this
again?
Anthony (10:25):
After 11 years of being in the bone marrow
registry, I got a phone call outof the blue and you know a good
ways.
A year and a half out from thekidney donation.
I was a match woman.
All I knew was a female inCalifornia who was leukemia
patient who needed stem cellsafter her treatment, and they
explain the asparifis not greatwith pronunciation.
(10:47):
It's basically like a longblood donation or anybody who's
donated plasma at a blood bankknows what it's like.
You sit somewhere for three,four hours hooked up to a
machine.
You go home afterwards and thatsounded easy enough.
I was perfectly happy to do it,and the stem cell donation was
so easy that a year later, inthe spring of 2018, when I got a
(11:09):
phone call back from them totell me that my recipient was
doing well and that she wouldlove to connect for a phone call
and that their policy would bethe match was, they waited for a
year for a positive outcomebefore making a patient and
donor connection.
I literally didn't remember,when they called back a year
later, what they were referringto, because the stem cell
(11:30):
donation was just such an easyprocess.
It sounds awful, but I hadliterally forgotten I had even
done it and I had this totallyunexpected later that afternoon
conversation with Jill Tracy,who was my stem cell recipient,
and she shared pictures of herdogs who she was now allergic to
, because, like me, I'm allergicto my pets and you hand off
(11:52):
your immune system to somebody,you give them your allergies.
So she has my pet allergies nowand I had a good laugh over
that and got to hear about whatit meant to her to be able to
continue to be a presence in herchildren and her
grandchildren's life thanks torecovery after her cancer
treatment.
And it was incredibly rewardingthat phone call.
(12:12):
I was in the timing again, theuniverse kind of like looking
out for me, maybe when Icouldn't myself.
I was not in a great placemanaging my depression at that
particular moment and I had alsovery recently relapsed after
six years of continuous sobrietyfrom drugs and alcohol.
So I was in a pretty dark placewhen I got Jill's phone call
(12:35):
and it was so hope-inspiring toknow that there was just this
really positive story out thereand then I was a small part of
it.
It was really rewarding and sowhen I got off the phone with
her I emailed my originaltransplant center Every couple
of months, my kidney recipient,lance, would reach out and say
(12:57):
that he wanted to connect and toget to know me, and I had
always denied the request, sortof staying with the anonymity,
and I decided it was time tomeet Lance and Lori.
I thought the conversation withJill was beautiful.
The conversation with Lance waseven better.
He was this guy who was onlyjust a few years older than me
(13:17):
who told me a story aboutimmigrating here from Jamaica
and getting to start this lifeand he would regularly go back
to travel to see his family andbecause of dialysis and his
mother's illness, she hadn'tbeen able to come out and see
him for a few years and hewasn't able to travel to Jamaica
anymore.
And he had actually had, a fewdays before the kidney donation
and a conversation with hismother that he thought was going
(13:39):
to be his last, and he told meabout filling up 20 suitcases
full of clothes and donationsfrom his church and flying to
Jamaica for the first time afterhis kidney transplant and
getting to see his mom and toget to feel like he could
contribute back to his communityagain.
And it's a little hard to talkabout without crying.
(14:00):
You know the thing aboutdepression and especially the
way it interacts with addiction.
Laura is so easy to buy intothe narrative that we're not
good enough that we're hopeless.
The world would be a betterplace without us go back to
(14:29):
being who Lance is in the worldto be the man who is a kind and
generous father and whoorganizes these donations for
his community and brings so muchprosperity and joy into his
hometown.
My desire to have beenanonymous and kind of like work
on some of this ego stuff deniedme the joy of getting to be a
part of Lance's life and to feelstrengthened by some of the
good that he does in the world.
(14:50):
That was really helpful.
I wasn't probably in the worstplace I've ever been in 2018,
but I was not in a great placetwo years into a relapse after a
long stint of sobriety, and itwas really helpful.
Those two conversations werereally helpful and kind of
changing that narrative in mymind.
You know like actually theworld is a little bit of a
(15:11):
better place with me in it andyou know, maybe if I keep doing
a little bit more good, I willbe filled with hope and optimism
that the future could be alittle bit better.
And that started me on thedeliberation process for what
did I need to do to get healthyand well so I could also be a
liver donor.
(15:31):
So led me back to recovery, gotme exercising and losing weight
and quit drinking again and wasable to do a third donation.
That this time I didn't do soprivately and got to celebrate
with family and friends and whenI was scared before the surgery
I could lean on people.
Celebrate with family andfriends and when I was scared
before the surgery I could leanon people and when I was going
through the recovery which ishard liver recovery is hard I
(15:57):
had a lot of people to love meand support me and help me
through that.
And really got to have theprivileged chance of getting to
have a third new friend, abrother, in my life.
That has given me a littleresume.
That makes it very hard to buythe narrative that the
depression and addiction has inthe back of our minds right.
It's really hard to look atkind of this portfolio of good
(16:18):
deeds that I've been luckyenough to be a part of and say
you know what the depression'sright?
Laurie (16:25):
Wow.
Would you be open to sharingmore about your journey to
sobriety and your own mentalhealth challenges and how that's
affected your life?
Anthony (16:33):
Yeah, I am a product of a loving, safe home with a
great community.
We had enough food.
We had good roof over our head.
I had loving family members andsiblings.
I had no trauma.
But when I was 10 years old Iwas sad and it didn't make sense
as to why I was sad.
By the time I was 13, I wasseeking treatment for depression
(16:57):
and my teenage years were rough, but they got really bad when I
discovered drinking.
I was just about 17 years oldwhen I had my first alcoholic
beverage and immediately gotsick, threw up on myself and
decided that I had found thesolution to my depression.
It was the first time that Ihad felt something akin to
(17:20):
comfortable in my own skin in afew years and unfortunately,
because of the genetic makeup Ihave, there is some addiction
that runs in my family.
I went from having never drankto I drank until I blacked out,
drunk every day for six monthsas a young man.
I mean I was just turning 17.
It's kind of shocking to lookat in retrospect.
(17:41):
That culminated in a suicideattempt.
I was in the hospital for acouple of weeks.
It was a pretty close call asuicide attempt.
I was in the hospital for acouple of weeks.
It was a pretty close call.
It really took me a good sevenyears after that to get well
enough to start functioning as asociety, did not go to college,
was in and out of living in myparents' basement in my early
20s, drank every single day.
(18:01):
I was 25 years old.
It was 2007 when I was luckyenough to have gotten desperate
enough to ask for help and had afamily friend who was a member
of AA called her up.
She sent two of her malefriends over.
They picked me up and went toan AA meeting and I, thanks to
this amazing fellowship ofvolunteers and other people who
(18:24):
were in recovery, was able toput together a much better life.
But what a 12-step programtaught me was something so much
more important about my healthand well-being than just putting
the booze down.
I did absolutely need to stopdrinking.
That is a central fact of mymental health and wellness.
But I think in part of thereason.
(18:46):
I think there's some geneticpredisposition in me towards
addiction.
But this is the depression thatreally gives life, that I think
that pairs up with my addiction.
That makes it really dangerous.
And what I learned in a 12 stepprogram?
12 steps all about you getlucky enough to get your life
together and now you got to goand be of service to somebody
(19:07):
else, make somebody else's lifebetter.
I had been such a mess for the10 years before I got sober that
I couldn't think of anybodyelse.
Maybe I was a good person, Idon't know.
I don't think I was a badperson.
I certainly was struggling, butI was struggling too much to be
able to think of other people.
I think the first time I everdid any volunteering that wasn't
(19:28):
my parents being kind enough todrag me to something try to get
a little experience of it as ayoung person was because of a
12-step program and completelyreoriented my life.
I started working in nonprofitfundraising.
Day job was oriented to helpingpeople.
I worked in service andrecovery and that did more to
treat the depression than reallyanything else could, because it
(19:50):
changes that narrative.
I'm connected to people, so Ifeel supported, I'm not alone
and I'm making the world abetter place, which gives me a
little bit of a sense of hopefor a better future, which I
think is a really importantanecdote to depression.
Laurie (20:04):
It sounds like you managed your depression by
finding ways to connect toothers, and whether that be
through AA or giving awaymultiple parts of your body, you
kept finding that connectionand it sounds like this has very
much become a lifestyle for you.
Is that accurate?
Anthony (20:23):
That reality that I think what's so sad about
addiction is it cuts us off fromthe people closest to us right
we hurt the people we love,either from they just hate
watching us do what we're doingto ourself.
We can be not our best selvesaround them when we're
struggling with our addictions.
Addiction is really hard on thewhole family, and being able to
(20:44):
mend those relationships, tocreate repair, to reconnect with
those folks we know all theevidence indicates that it makes
people less likely to relapse.
But we also know that itfacilitates a broader amount of
healing too, and for me that wasdefinitely true.
You nailed it.
For me it is about connection.
How are we sharing these piecesof ourselves with each other to
(21:05):
make our lives and their livesequally better?
That there's no separationbetween those two things Me
getting healthier, me quittingdrinking made my whole family's
life better.
My family's life being bettermade my life better.
There are indicate that there'seven a separation between those
two things is, I think, to kindof have a weird view of what a
(21:26):
family actually is.
Laurie (21:27):
I think to kind of have a weird view of what a family
actually is.
Transplant centers handlepeople with mental health
challenges carefully during thedonor evaluation and I
understand this is for goodreason.
They don't want someone'smental health to be negatively
impacted when they donate.
Can you describe yourexperience as a donor navigating
your evaluations?
Anthony (21:47):
This was something that both of my transplant
centers looked at very carefullybecause of my history right.
So I had had a hospitalizationin my teenage years.
It was a consequence of asuicide attempt.
But you know, going into thekidney donation I had been sober
for over six years, so theywere pretty confident in that.
But what my evaluation lookedlike was more than just your
normal sort of standard checkthe box psyche eval.
(22:09):
They wanted a letter from mytherapist, who I had a
multi-year relationship with mymed provider, my psychiatrist,
who provides my antidepressant.
I think that was comparable inboth rounds the kidney and the
liver donation.
And then there were, especiallyfor altruistic donors.
There's always a couple oflayers of conversations, I think
(22:31):
a little just wanting to makesure that people who are doing a
donation not motivated by adirect family member or friend,
that they're in a healthy placeand that their motivations for
doing this thing that carries alittle bit of risk right, it's
not a completely risk-free thing, so there'll be some kind of
psych evaluation.
(22:51):
I think mine were a little bitmore extensive and detailed than
other people, but that gave meconfidence that the medical
professionals at the heart ofthese procedures they're not
willing to make one person'slife worse off to help another,
and I think, with somebody whomight initially say, ooh geez,
that's a complicated mentalhealth history, are you really
sure you should be doing this?
I think people at a transplantcenter understand why people
(23:13):
like me who struggle withaddiction and with depression,
really need meaning, purpose andhope in their life, and that
both of the donations helped me,and so I really felt like the
evaluation process wasrespectful of my autonomy.
But ultimately, what Iappreciated about the mental
health staff at sure, if this isa safe step for anything, how
(23:47):
do we help him get into thisprocess so he can get the
benefits that come from gettingto do a little good?
Laurie (23:54):
It sounds like you had an open-minded team.
Anthony (23:57):
Yeah, I mean, life is messy, right and it's hard, and
I think say, as the person intraining in this field,
addiction is not a hopelessstate.
There is a lot of recovery andwhen you look at recovery from
substance use addiction incomparison to other medical
diagnoses, our recovery ratesare better than cancer, diabetes
(24:19):
, you can go down a whole longlist of chronic illnesses that
the chances for sustainedrecovery and wellness after
substance use are.
We have, quite frankly, betternumbers, especially once you get
to a year of continuous absence, if that's one's personal goal
in their relationship to drugsand alcohol, Our outcomes are
great.
So I think the healthcaresystem, if you look at addiction
(24:44):
without stigma, if you look atit as, is this person healthy?
Are they connected and workingon their mental health?
Are they prioritizing theirrecovery?
Is that an important part oftheir life?
The same way that we can manageother symptoms and allow for
donations, mental illness andmental disorders is just another
one that we can respectfullytake into account.
Laurie (25:05):
Yeah, absolutely, one that we can, you know,
respectfully take into account.
Yeah, absolutely.
And look at the big picture ofthe person and their whole story
, and you know them as amultifaceted human being and not
just somebody with depressionor a history of alcoholism.
But looking at the wholepicture, yeah.
Do you have any advice forsomebody who's trying to donate,
who might have to jump throughsome extra hoops as they kind of
(25:27):
define their mental healthhistory to a transplant team?
Anthony (25:33):
Yeah, just be prepared for a little extra questions.
Honesty is the best policy.
They want what's best for you.
Take the cautions seriously.
I would not have, in 2018, madea good liver donor.
I had been drinking again.
I needed a long bout ofcontinuous sobriety to be
(25:53):
qualified for that.
Continuous sobriety to bequalified for that.
We don't get anywhere trying tolie or hide or distort the
truth.
If there is an area for concern, if you're not going to enough
therapy or if you're not beingcompliant with your medication
regime, if you're strugglingwith substance use disorders,
use this input as an opportunityto kind of work on
(26:17):
strengthening those issues.
Lean into your treatment plans,lean on your providers, lean on
your family and friends whowant what's best for you.
Laurie (26:24):
That's excellent advice.
You know it's the transplantteam looking out for the best
interests of the donor and it'sjust.
I think patience is importantand just understanding that
they're here to help you andthat they're on your team even
if it feels like you have tojump through extra hoops.
Anthony (26:38):
Well said.
Laurie (26:40):
So let's talk a little bit about anxiety.
One thing that makes me anxiousis the thought of jumping out
of an airplane.
You don't share that with me,do you?
Anthony (26:53):
Well, I did for 11 years.
I bought my first tandem tojump out of an airplane when I
was 21 years old.
I'd always wanted to skydiveand I was so nervous the night
before my tandem skydive Ididn't set my alarm.
I knew I wasn't going.
I didn't answer the phone whenthey called, looking for me, I
just pretended like it neverhappened.
Fast forward four years laterI'm now 25 years old.
(27:13):
I'm going to jump out of anairplane for my birthday.
This time I actually got 50minutes of the 55 minute car
ride to the trip before.
I was so nervous that I pulledthe car over.
I had a couple of deep breathsto get my hands to stop shaking
enough so I could turn aroundand drive home.
I didn't even successfully makeit there.
I was 32 years old before Ifinally jumped out of my first
(27:35):
airplane.
Laurie (27:36):
Wow, that took a long time.
Anthony (27:38):
It took a long time.
I was hooked.
The second I got out of theairplane.
I was, you know, the guy wasexplaining to me how to get
licensed before we even got tothe ground.
He told me when we landed thatthere are two types of people in
the world and people who dothis once and they've checked
their bucket list item, and thenthe people for whom it becomes
a way of life.
And you know, I learned a lot,Laurie, and it was actually
(28:00):
really helpful.
There's a lot of cliches aboutskydiving, but they're cliches
because they're true.
It's safe.
It's outrageously safe.
It's actually 22 times safer tojump out of an airplane than it
is to get pregnant.
If you look at comparablefatality rates, it is safer than
kidney and liver donation.
Actually, as I was working up tomaking my kidney donation, it
(28:23):
was what I learned aboutmanaging risk through skydiving
that helped me understand how toapproach something that I was
scared of, that you can quantifyrisk, you can decide what your
risk tolerance is, and then youjust have to work with the
emotions of fear.
Fear is a great safety instinct.
Fear has a default setting thatis supposed to be overly
(28:45):
protective, is to hold us back,but you can build a mental model
for something and you canapproach it in a safe way, even
when it's dangerous.
And yeah, skydiving gave me achance to start working that
muscle is dangerous, even whenit and yeah, skydiving gave me a
chance to kind of start workingthat muscle.
That cliche of, like you know,there's no courage in the
absence of fear right, we dothings that are brave and
courageous because we're scared,not because we're not scared.
(29:07):
I was terrified of skydivingand I was for the first like 100
or 200 jumps, I think.
I was nervous every time for awhile there.
Laurie (29:13):
That's a lot of dives to be nervous on.
Would you consider it alifestyle too?
I had a friend recently whosaid oh, so-and-so is exploring
the double donor lifestyle and Ikind of chuckled when I read
the text.
But I think it's kind of true.
There seems to be a culture ofpeople who are sharing multiple
organs, doing multiple donations.
(29:34):
What do you think?
Is it a lifestyle?
Anthony (29:36):
Interesting.
I don't know if I thought aboutit as a lifestyle, because part
of the reason I value thefriendships with my fellow
double donors is that there is apassion and a zeal for life
that is palpable.
I feel like what connects me tomy friends who are double donors
has less to do with the organdonation.
It has more to do with a lifephilosophy and when we see the
(29:58):
donor athlete groups, that's agroup of folks that they're
hardworking, they're disciplined, they love to have fun with
their friends, doing somethingthat's good for the world and
healthy for their bodies.
At the same time, there's atheme there that the organ
donation kind of makes sense,almost as a symptom of this core
positive thing so you can be apart of the community, you can
(30:19):
advocate, you can help educate.
These are service-oriented,connection-oriented people
trying to live authentic andmeaningful lives first, and
organ donation is a part of it.
I don't know if I would thinkof many of the people as like oh
yeah, they're organ donors andthat's the lifestyle.
So I think I flipped.
The orientation Is that fair.
Laurie (30:38):
Yeah, that is fair.
I recently had a guest who saidwe were talking about
connectedness and he saidsomething to the effect of he
feels that organ donors oftenhave that connection to the
whole and therefore, when he'saround other organ donors and
they're feeling that connectionto the whole and he's feeling
that he feels connected to them.
Anthony (30:59):
That's beautiful.
Laurie (31:00):
It's the first thing we have in common, but certainly
not the last thing.
Anthony (31:04):
Yeah, that sounds right.
That captures it for me.
By choice I don't have children, but generativity knowing that
we're giving something to futuregenerations is a big part of
human beings' sense ofsatisfaction in life.
It's such a privilege to be ahuman being, to be alive.
To not pay that forward inreproducing Organ donation was a
(31:26):
way that I got to kind ofcontribute to this common
project of life.
What a privilege I understandnow telling my story that you
can overcome depression, you canovercome addiction, you can be
connected to others, you canbuild a life of meaning and
purpose.
That it's going to be hard butit's going to be worth it.
And talking about my story andthen seeing the different ways
(31:50):
that that's helped people bynormalizing, I think, mental
disorders, normalizing recovery.
It's a little bit of how I'm ofservice today and I'd like to
share this with other people.
Laurie (32:01):
I didn't know that you kind of looked at this as a way
of giving life that wasn'thaving a child, and that's
something that I certainly feelas well, and it's nice to now
meet a man who shares that, andit's a neat thing to be able to
give life without giving birth.
Well, is there anything elseyou'd like to share before we
end today?
Anthony (32:22):
Our media and our news and our social media feeds are
just filled up with all of therough stuff, and you've
collected and pulled some reallybeautiful stories through this
podcast and through the rest ofyour life's work.
You're putting a lot of goodout there and I just wanted to
say thank you for what you'redoing.
I admire it.
I think it's really important.
Laurie (32:40):
Well, thank you so much for recording with me today.
It's been fun to get to knowyou a little bit today.
Anthony (32:46):
Lori the same.
Thank you for listening to me.
I appreciate you creating aspace for it.
Laurie (32:52):
Anthony's story shows how living donation can be an
opportunity to thrive and todeepen your connection to others
, but also to yourself.
If your evaluation requires alittle extra work due to your
mental health history, try to bepatient and remember the
evaluation is designed with yourbest interests in mind, so
don't take it personally.
(33:12):
This season of Donor Diaries isproudly sponsored by GiftWorks,
an organization dedicated toempowering organ recipients and
living donors through education,advocacy and support.
By helping patients share theirjourneys and connect with
donors, giftworks ensureseveryone feels supported
throughout the transplantprocess.
(33:32):
We're honored to partner with ateam that's transforming lives,
one transplant at a time.
To learn more, visityourgiftworkscom if you're
enjoying this podcast.
Thanks for listening.
I hope you tune in next monthfor another inspiring episode.
Don't forget to follow us onfacebook to join the
conversation there, and be sureto subscribe so you know when we
(33:54):
drop a new episode.
Remember, every act of kindnesscreates ripples.
Thanks for listening and keepspreading those positive vibes.
This is Lori Lee signing off.
I just want to feel thesunshine.
(34:17):
I just want to feel thesunshine.
I share this life with you.
I share this life with you,thank you.
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