 | Erika Wells, who received a kidney transplant at age 20, is now studying kidney diseases at Yale. |
When the 117th annual Tournament of Roses Parade winds its way through the city of Pasadena, California, on Jan. 2, Yale doctoral student Erika Wells will be among the riders on one of the parade's 44 flower-laden floats.
Wells, a first-year student in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences program (BBS), will ride on a 50-foot-long float sponsored by Donate Life, an alliance of national organizations and local coalitions dedicated to educating the public about organ and tissue donation.
For the Yale student, participating in the legendary parade will be an emotional one. As the recipient of a kidney transplant, she is the embodiment of the message the Donate Life float will carry.
In keeping with this year's parade theme "It's Magical," Donate Life has titled its float "Life Transformed" to reflect "the physical, emotional and spiritual transformation experienced by people touched by organ and tissue donation," notes the Tournament of Roses website.
Wells is one of 23 people who will ride on the Donate Life float. The riders, who hail from throughout the country, include living organ donors, family members of organ/tissue donors and transplant recipients.
On the 17-foot-high, 18-foot-wide float, Wells and the other riders will be surrounded by crafted birds, butterflies and a caterpillar, along with live flowers cascading from a fallen tree, symbolically depicting how new life can spring from life lost. The float will also carry hundreds of roses, each tagged with the name of an organ/tissue donor, a transplant recipient or a person on a waiting list for a transplant.
Wells says that she is so grateful for getting the gift of a "second chance at life" when she received a kidney that she is always willing to share her personal story, and she is fervent in her desire to help promote organ and tissue donation.
The Yale doctoral student was 15 years old when blurred vision necessitated a trip to an optometrist, who discovered that all of the blood vessels behind her eyes had burst -- a result of excessively high blood pressure. It was so high, in fact, that her parents immediately took her to a hospital emergency room. There, Wells says, she was told that she was "a walking time bomb for a stroke."
She was soon diagnosed with IgA nephropathy, a type of chronic kidney disease that often progresses to renal failure. The next five years of Wells' life were filled with doctor's visits and medications (she took some 20 pills a day) to control her symptoms and slow the disease's progression.
"I wasn't the typical teenager because of my illness," says Wells. "Between my mom's protectiveness and my own worry about my health, I was too afraid to do wild things. I also didn't tell a lot of people about my illness because I didn't want anyone to pity me, or to feel restricted themselves because of the constraints caused by my illness."
In her high school classes and even at her senior prom, Wells was so fatigued that she fell asleep in the midst of them. Three days shy of her 18th birthday, her kidney function had deteriorated enough to place her on the national waiting list for a transplant.
Wells was just days away from beginning dialysis when, at the age of 20, she was called in for her transplant at the Loma Linda Transplant Clinic. Her donor was someone who died.
While there were some restrictions during her recovery period -- she had to take time off from her studies at California State University at San Bernardino and could not venture into public places -- Wells says that she began to feel better almost immediately after her transplant.
"It was amazing, a drastic change," she recalls. "I suddenly had energy to do things I couldn't do before and didn't need to take naps. Once I was able to go out again, I could take my dog for hikes and visit with friends and travel a bit more. It was like having a whole new life."
Wells earned her B.S. in biology last year from Cal State, where she minored in criminal justice. She is now a member of the Yale BBS's physiology and integrative medical biology track, and plans to focus her research on the physiology of the renal system and various kidney diseases.
"As a patient, I always wanted to know what was going on," she says. "When I had a kidney biopsy, I wanted to know who everybody was and exactly what they were doing. I thought, 'It's my body, and I want to know everything that is happening to it.' While I don't want to research my own disease specifically, I think my interest in the kidneys stems from some of my personal experience. A lot of people don't realize how important the kidneys are, how much they regulate in the body. We can't live without them."
The Yale graduate student must still take certain medications, including drugs that prevent rejection of her transplanted kidney -- although far fewer pills than before her transplant. She has few other dietary or health-related restrictions.
Her life of greater freedom -- and her gratitude toward those who donate organs -- has taken away the qualms she once had about talking about her illness. In a college speech class, she says, she focused all of her presentations on the issue of organ transplants.
"My friends always kid me about having three kidneys, because when they give you a new one they leave the others there," says the Yale student.
Last year, Wells helped decorate the Donate Life Rose Parade float through OneLegacy, an organ procurement organization serving the Los Angeles area. Her involvement with the project resulted in one of her first media interviews. Her participation in the parade this year provides yet another opportunity for the Yale student to encourage organ and tissue donation.
"The statistics note that one person donating his or her organs or tissue can save up to 50 lives," Wells says. "While there are issues in some religions regarding the acceptance of donated organs, there is no major religion in the world that says you can't donate. I would never be presumptuous and say that everybody should do it, because I understand that it is not the right choice for everyone. But I do think that everyone should seriously consider it. It's a huge decision to make, and everyone needs to make it for themselves."
Someday, Wells expects to need another kidney transplant, as her disease may eventually damage her transplanted one.
"It's an emotional day when it comes to the anniversary of my transplant, and yet I know at the same time that for someone else, it's a sad time, because it marks another year without a loved one," says Wells.
"I say it over and over again: Thank you to all donor families out there," she continues. "There is no way to express in words what it means."
-- By Susan Gonzalez
T H I S
Student is embodiment of 'Life Transformed'
The Tournament of Roses Parade -- a precursor to the Jan. 3 Rose Bowl football contest between the nation's top two college teams -- begins at 8 a.m. Pacific Time and is broadcast live on nine networks: ABC, NBC, HGTV, Tribune Univision, Telemundo, Travel Channel, Discovery HD Theater and Sky Link TV.
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