LLU&MC Scope Autumn 2000

LLUMC participates in National Organ Donor Awareness Day, May 9

As part of a countrywide event on May 9, LLUMC held a ceremony to celebrate Organ Donor Awareness Day.

Carl Lewis, Wendy Marx, and Jeffrey Marx, special guests for Organ Donor Awareness Day at LLUMC, applaud members of the audience who have been involved with organ donation.

The LLUMC program, held on the lawn in front of University Church of Seventh-day Adventists, featured three guests who have dedicated their lives to raising awareness about organ donation. Wendy Marx was diagnosed with hepatitis B when she was 22 years old. The disease acted quickly, destroying her liver and leaving her in a coma. On November 25, 1989, her family was told she had only 24 hours to live.

It was during those hours, says her brother, Jeffrey Marx, that he and friend, Olympic champion Carl Lewis, promised each other to do everything they could to educate the public about organ donation through a new organization, the Wendy Marx Foundation.

Ms. Marx received a liver transplant the next day, and lived to join their fight.

As part of their efforts, the three were on a 25-city book tour to promote Mr. Marx's book, It Gets Dark Sometimes: My Sister's Fight to Live and Save Lives. Mr. Marx is also the winner of a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting.

The trio shared their story during the program and praised Ms. Marx's transplant surgeon, Waldo Concepcion, MD, FACS, director of the Transplantation Institute. Also during the program, Floyd Petersen, MPH, mayor of Loma Linda, read a proclamation naming May 9 "Organ Donor Awareness Day" in Loma Linda. He also presented Wendy and Jeffrey Marx and Mr. Lewis with copies of the proclamation and special plaques thanking them for their devotion to raising awareness.

[Scope, Autumn 2000]