Second chance

Article was published in the Observer & Eccentric Newspapers, Aug. 23, 2007

     Joe North says he can run circles around most kids these days. At 53, he puts in 84 hours per week at his own pizza shop, Munchies Pizza on Middlebelt in Livonia.

     "I feel good when I'm working," he said. "Everybody tells me it's too much work, but the doctors tell me to do what I enjoy doing."

     The doctors North refers to are the ones monitoring his progress since his heart and double lung transplant, June 1, 1998. "I've been very lucky," the Westland resident said.

     North suffered from emphysema and a weakening of the heart.

     "I smoked. I worked in an injection molding plastics shop and I was a volunteer firefighter," he said. "It doesn't matter what I did, it was bad for me."

     He got sick at age 37.

     He spent four years in a wheelchair.

     He had been on the transplant waiting list for one day shy of five years when the University of Michigan called to say they had the organs of an 18-year-old donor.

     North, a father of four, still doesn't know anything about the person who gave him a second chance. His efforts to contact the donor's family were unsuccessful.

     "They must have been some really great people, I'll tell you that," North said. "That's the ultimate gift."

     (To read the rest of the article, click on the clipping above.)

     Editor's note: It's no coincidence this is the second submission regarding a transplant recipient. I am the sister of two organ donors, and it has given me so much pleasure to meet people who have been given a second chance through organ donation.