By Jill Oestreicher Gross
AMESBURY — “We need never be strangers again.”
These are the words Jean Panza wrote in a letter more than a year ago to an anonymous organ donor's family expressing her gratitude after receiving a heart transplant that saved her life.
When Paula Flint of Amesbury, the mother of the donor, first read the letter, she burst into tears, recalling the life of her oldest son, Drew Doucet, who died at age 21 after complications from cerebral palsy.
Flint had not previously considered donating her son's healthy organs. But after being approached by hospital staff after Doucet's death and discussing it with her two other children, Hayley Flint, now 16, and Jared Spurr, now 20, the family decided to honor his memory by prolonging other people's lives.
"It was the right thing to do," Paula Flint said at an intimate gathering at her Amesbury home to introduce heart recipient Panza and Panza's husband, Joe, of Old Lyme, Conn., to Flint's family and friends. "Drew would have wanted it that way."
Doucet died on Oct. 30, 2007, and his heart was successfully transplanted to Panza on Nov. 1, 2007. The New England Organ Bank connected the two parties at their request, a step not every family desires.
Panza and Flint first met in February of this year at a geographically convenient spot, Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, but both women felt it was important for Panza to meet the rest of Flint's family, who cared so deeply for Doucet, described as a loving and communicative person.
"Part of her child is in me. His beats keep me alive," Panza said at the recent gathering on a hazy day at the home Flint shares with Ron Eaton. "It's amazing; it's incredible; it's a strange feeling; it's a good feeling. I was very blessed."
Panza, 61, had been ill for more than five years with a type of cardiomyopathy, a structural disease of the heart that prevents it from pumping blood efficiently, and she eventually developed congestive heart failure.
In late 2007, she was admitted to the intensive care unit at Yale-New Haven Hospital and told she would not be able to leave without a new heart. Six weeks later, Panza was notified that the heart of a 21-year-old male was becoming available in Massachusetts. That male was Drew Doucet.
During Panza's hospital stay, Joe Panza detailed her illness on the Internet at www.howsjean.pbworks.com. He now plans to use the archive of the Web site to publish a book, entitled "Heartfelt: A Journey Through Transplantation," and has asked Flint to write the final chapter of the book. Panza said proceeds will benefit Donate Life, an organ donation advocacy group.
The Panzas, who have relatives in Colorado, are also participating in the Donor Alliance's 10th annual "Donor Dash," a 5K walk/run in Denver, Colo., to raise awareness of organ and tissue donors and recipients and those waiting for transplants. "Team Jean 2009" members will wear T-shirts with Doucet's photo. Flint and her family are hoping to join the group at the race on July 19. For more information, visit www.donoralliance.org/donordash.
In Massachusetts, residents can sign up as an organ donor during the driver's licensing process.
So far this year, eight hearts have been donated and 20 transplant surgeries have occurred in Massachusetts, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, established by the U.S. Congress in 1984 as the single donor and transplant information source. Donated organs are often flown from state to state to provide the best donor/recipient match, and not every organ donated is provided to a person in the same state.
As of June 23, there were 113 people in the state and 2,809 people in the United States waiting for a heart transplant. Four people in Massachusetts have died this year while waiting for a donor heart.
For Jean Panza, receiving Doucet's heart has bound her to his family forever, she said.
"It's a miracle," she said. "Every day I pray for the child."
