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DECATUR, Ala. (AP) — Elizabeth Miller has vague memories of what doctors told her about the source of a donated kidney she received in 1989.
It was from a man who apparently died of head trauma he sustained in a car accident in Mobile.
"I got one of his kidneys, and a young boy in South Carolina got the other," the Decatur mother of two said. "I don't know if my donor was from Mobile or was just in an accident there. This was all they told me."
Now 70, Miller said she wants to find the extended family she has never met to tell them thank you.
It's something she always wanted to do, but she feels a stronger urge to do so because last month was the 25th anniversary of her transplant at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
"I just don't know where to start," Miller said.
Jackie Kates, of the Gift of Life Donor Program in Philadelphia, said it's not impossible to find donor families 25 years later. She said the first thing Miller should do is contact the hospital's donor program.
Kates said it should be able to facilitate communication between Miller and the donor's family.
"I'm aware of situations where donor families and a donor recipient spoke 15 or 20 years down the road," she said.
Kates said it might seem unreasonable, but there are times when the donor family is not ready until years later.
"It's about where they are in the grieving process," she said.
Miller, one of the state's oldest living kidney transplant recipients, hasn't pushed for details because, "I didn't want to bother anyone and didn't think I would get anywhere."
Kates said the donor's family may be having some of the same feelings.
Earlene French Gray spoke with the surgeon 25 years ago while her sister was in intensive care.
"I remember he told me he didn't know anything about the donor," Gray said. "I guess we assumed that if he didn't know, nobody at the hospital would."
Gray said the immediate concern for the family after the transplant was nursing Miller back to health.
Miller's journey to the state's kidney waiting list started in December 1987 when she had a coughing spell at her job at General Electric.
Doctors found fluid in her lungs and sent her to a kidney specialist. Miller spent a month in the hospital and went on dialysis in March 1988. In January 1989, her name was added to Alabama's kidney transplant waiting list.
Gray was being tested to see if she was a suitable donor when the call came from UAB Hospital on Sept. 25, 1989.
"They told me to get down to the hospital as soon as possible," Miller recalled.
Miller said she met the "little boy" who got the other kidney. She spent three weeks in the hospital before returning to the Northwest Decatur home where she has lived since the 1960s.
She still takes anti-rejection medication, down from six times per day to twice.
Miller and Gray are the only two of five siblings living. They go to lunch every year on the anniversary of the transplant. Gray said 23 of those meals have been at Krystal, "because that's where she wants to go."
Miller, who didn't go back to work after the transplant, has talked more about her donor this year, according to her sister.
"We need to complete this circle," Gray said. "I know she wants to meet the donor family."
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Information from: The Decatur Daily, http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/index.shtml
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