“Thank you, Dad!” Marissa Salgado cannot say it enough. When chronic kidney failure changed her life, the 16-year-old endured years of daily dialysis.
Be an Organ and Tissue Donor
Stories of Hope
Our goal at Donate Life Northwest is to educate and encourage people to sign up on their state donor registry. Why? To offer hope to the parents of an 11-year-old boy given six months to live unless he receives a heart transplant. To give grieving families the knowledge their loved one left a selfless legacy. To join in celebration of lives saved and sight and mobility restored because a person's decision to donate was known and honored at their time of death. Because organ, eye and tissue donation is about one human being offering the gift of life to another.
Submit Your Story
Arash Fathizadeh
A stem cell transplant cured Arash of Diamond-Blackfan Anemia when he was 16. Years later, his stepmother's living kidney donation saved his life. Today, this healthy registered nurse is giving back by volunteering!
Emily Lighthipe
Emily had never met Liz, but when she heard that Liz needed a kidney, she volunteered to be tested and ultimately donated to the woman who is now her friend.
Mark Tatom
Unexpectedly stricken with Necrotizing Fasciitis -- a flesh-eating bacteria, Mark spent a month in a coma. Today, he is thankful for the skin and tissue grafts that saved his life, and he spends his days giving back.
Nathan Westerlund
Today, Nathan is an enthusiastic husband, professional, volunteer, and board member thanks to the generosity of three liver donors and a kidney donor.
Nathan Cadwallader
Nathan became an organ donor at age 17, donating his liver and both kidneys. He will always be remembered for the lives he saved.
Norrine Smokey-Smith
Norrine is grateful for breath, life, and the ability to serve -- both the Donate Life community and the Native American community.
Teresa Rambaud
Thanks to four cornea donors and their families, Teresa sees and lives life in bright, vivid color.
Gary Langenwalter
At a routine appointment with his eye doctor, Gary learned that his weakening vision was anything but routine. Cornea transplant has given him back his active lifestyle.
Mike Hargett
Faced with so many health problems, many people would have given up. But Mike has faced it with courage and determination. Now, with a donated heart, a donated kidney, and enthusiasm, he's moving forward.
Cal Mitchell
Cal Mitchell thought he was just going to get some results back on routine blood work that day in 2006. Instead, he learned that life had changed forever with a diagnosis of polycystic kidney disease (PKD).