Happy Transplant Day Dad!

No one needs to remind Gene Duerksen of Delft how important being an organ and tissue donor can be.

Twenty-five years ago, Feb. 20, 1992, Duerksen was given new life when he received a kidney and islet cell transplant. (Islet cells produce insulin.) The organ and pancreatic islets were donated by Shawn Silkey, a 26-year-old Minnesota woman who died in a car accident less than a day earlier.

Although Shawn never had the organ donor note checked on her driver’s license, she had told a friend that she would like to be a donor in the event of her untimely death. The friend told Shawn’s family of her wishes and they agreed that it was something that Shawn would want.

Gene, meanwhile, had spent the previous year on home dialysis. A severe diabetic since age 17, his condition was not good at 42 years old in 1992 and his eyesight was rapidly deteriorating.

However, Shawn’s kidney and islet cells were a near perfect match.

“There are about five things that they go by and I had four of them for that kidney,” Gene says.

Gene remembers Feb. 19, 1992, well.

“As we went for the transplant, I got so sick,” he says. “We got to Mankato and called to see if we should cancel, and they said, ‘No, keep coming.’ They watched me closely and then I came out of it and they did the transplant right away.

“I think I was excited.”

Surgeons got a quick indication that the transplant was successful.

“I was reading one of the articles I saved and it said that when they put the new kidney in, it immediately turned pick, which meant it started working,” he says, now 25 years later.

He weathered one rejection episode and then his body began producing insulin from the islet cell transplant.

At the time, kidney transplants were nothing new, however, the islet transplant was revolutionary. In fact, at the time, Gene was one of just three people “in the history of the world,” as his doctor put it, to have a successful islet transplant.

The islet cell transplant prevented Gene from having to have insulin injections for between six months and a year. Due to rejection drugs he was taking, he lost some of the islet cells and needed to resume taking insulin injections. However, his doctor believes that the islet cells are still there and working because he needs lower doses of insulin.

In any case, he continues to live on that signal life-saving kidney.

“Everything has worked out so well,” Duerksen maintains with a smile.

Duerksen’s kidney and islet transplant is more than remarkable. He says a kidney received from a living donor lasts about 15.5 years, which is twice as long as a kidney received from someone who has died. Yet, 25 years later, the kidney

continues to give Duerksen life.

“I think it’s God who’s done it. I tell people, ‘If you don’t want me around any more, quit praying,’  ” Duerksen says with a laugh. “The only reason I’m here is because they keep praying.”

On that day 25 years ago, Shawn’s organ and tissue donations resulted in changed lives for at least five people.

But the organ donation ultimately involved more than a giver and a receiver. About four years after the transplant — through LifeSource, the intermediary between donor or donor’s family and recipient — Gene was able to meet Shawn’s family. The moment was captured on the KARE 11 evening news in August of 1996.

Admittedly, Duerksen’s transplant experience is not typical. In fact, Duerksen says that a very small percentage of donors or donor families meet the recipient. In some cases, there’s only an exchange of Christmas cards or an occasional letter. In other cases, the donor/recipient bond ends at surgery.

Duerksen considers himself one of the fortunate ones.

“They were excited and I was excited,” Gene says of their opportunity to meet one another.

Duerksen was eager to remind people of the gift he received for several reasons. First, it was the milestone 25th anniversary of the transplant and at 67 years old, Gene admits that he isn’t sure he’ll be fortunate enough to celebrate a 50th anniversary.

Secondly, the story comes on the eve of March, which is National Kidney Month, with National Donate Life Month just around the corner in April.

And lastly, but most importantly, Duerksen wants to promote and encourage others to become organ and tissue donors.

“A deceased donor can touch as many as 50 people,” he emphasizes.

“The ideal (way) to be a transplant donor is to have it on your driver’s license. Shawn didn’t have it on her driver’s license, but she had made a comment to a friend that she would like to give.”

Duerksen adds that people who are considering being a donor should take one other step.

“Make sure it’s OK with the family,” Duerksen says.

Today, there are very few healthy organs that cannot be transplanted. It was 1954 that the first successful kidney transplant occurred and 14 years later, the first heart transplant happened.

Another milestone in transplant history came in 1983 when cyclosporine, the first of a new group of successful anti-rejection drugs, was approved for commercial use.

Meanwhile, 2001 marked the first time that the annual total of living donors exceeded deceased donors.

And, just last week, surgeons at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester shared the story of a man, who received an amazing face transplant.

According to United Network for Organ Sharing, more than 29,000 men, women and children receive life-saving organ transplants each year.

UNOS also points out on its website, www.unos.org, that presently 118,531 people need a lifesaving organ transplant (total waiting list of candidates) and of those, 75,980 people are active waiting list candidates. Since the first of the year,

2,801 transplants have been performed this year thanks to the life-saving gift of 1,323 donors.

Unfortunately, Duerksen says that an average of 22 people per day die because of a lack of donor organs and tissue, which is an increase of 14 people per day since Duerksen had his kidney transplant 25 years ago.

For more information about becoming a donor, visit the United Network for Organ Sharing at www.unos.org, or visit LifeSource at www.lifesource.org.

Here is a write up Dave Fjeld did on Gene at Thanksgiving in 2014…….

This article is posted here at FGGAM with permission from the Cottonwood County Citizen Newspaper in Windom, Minnesota. What a BLESSING!

HE’S our thanksgiving

If ever there is a better walking, talking – and singing – billboard for Thanksgiving, one would be hard-pressed to find anyone more qualified than Gene Duerksen of Delft.

Over the past three decades, the longtime Delft resident has battled one medical issue after another, much of which has stemmed from the diabetes with which he was diagnosed in 1967, after graduating from Windom High School. Indeed, Duerksen, 65, has dealt with eye problems since 1982 (he is considered legally blind today), a kidney transplant 10 years later and, since 2000, a heart attack, West Nile Disease that took him within a whisper of death, a leg amputation, prostate survery and, just this year, skin cancer which is a result of the anti-rejection drugs he takes for his kidney transplant.

And through it all, Duerksen continues to be thankful, for the fact that he is still here today, that he can be an example of God’s power when one places his trust in Him – and even for his circumstances, as sometimes painful or challenging as they can be.

“I feel God has allowed this to happen so that we can show other people how great He is,” Gene says.

“I just want to be a testimony to the Lord of how thankful everyone should be for their circumstances and how God will take them through, if people would just be willing to trust Him.”

Duerksen turns to Philippians 1:29 to support his testimony: For to you has been given the privilege not only of trusting Him but also of suffering for Him.

“When suffering comes, we can either get bitter or better,” Duerksen maintains.

“Despite facing one health battle after another, I haven’t gone through depression,” Duerksen says. “I get a little discouraged, but I’m not depressed by that.”

His daughter, Lynn Stoneking, was driving Gene to St. James one day this summer when he shared with her that he was feeling his life was not as valued, now that he couldn’t do many of the things he used to do for his family. A hard-working laborer, Gene’s health issues have caused him to rely on help from his family and others.

And then Lynn reminded him that his worth shouldn’t be measured in only one type of manual labor. His responsibilities to his family have now changed. The things he once did for his family can now be done by his children, and where his value now lies is in being a grandfather to five grandchildren. Indeed, there are many days when “grandpa” can push the youngsters in the swing or simply cuddle with them and teach them songs while his children and their spouses tackle other chores around the farm.

She also reminded him that his value is in the prayer journal he has kept for almost two years. After diabetes took his lower left leg, Gene decided his ministry was done, until God told him to start praying.

And pray, he has.

He started a list of people and entities that need daily prayer. Everyone from his own family to the church to President Obama and even to the evil ISIS terrorist group.
The list numbers over 200 for whom he prays daily.

“And I don’t pray for just the sick one, I pray for the family,” Gene says. “That has been my ministry. Some days I think, ‘Why do I repeat it?’ But God says, ‘Come to me because I care (1 Peter 5:7)!’  ”

Every three months, he creates a new list, including many of the same people, issues and situations that need prayer while adding others. He keeps it all in a three-ring binder.
“And I’ll also call people on the telephone and pray for them over the phone because I can’t go see them like I used to,” Gene says.

And despite his setbacks, he and his wife, Margaret, of 42 years continue to be part of the ministry effort they started 40 years ago, Maranatha Ministries. While the ministry is now largely handled by their daughter, Lynn, and her husband, Thomas, Gene and Margaret still sing and share their testimony with Lynn from time to time locally and, of course, continue to pray for the ministry.

Lynn is one of the Duerksens’ four children. Their oldest daughter, Joanna (Bruce) Miller, lives in St. Cloud; Josh (fiancée Heather) lives in Windom; Lynn and Thomas live in a separate wing on the Duerksen farm and Phil (Candice) Duerksen live west of Delft. Gene and Margaret also enjoy being grandparents to five grandchildren.

Ask him what he’s most thankful for and he’s quick to point to his caregiver – his wife, Margaret.

“Margaret and I had three young children in elementary school,” Gene says of the time when his problems began.
“The support we received from teachers, the school, churches and the community – that’s what it’s all about. I’m so thankful for prayer.”

Gene says Lynn, in an August Facebook post, recalling her dad’s battle with West Nile a decade earlier, perhaps said it best about Gene’s and Margaret’s marriage.

“I can say that God didn’t randomly choose our mom to marry our dad and be his helpmate,” Lynn wrote. “Holding her masters degree in public health nursing, she has worked just as full-time and overtime caring for her husband and his needs as any nurse out there. It’s just part of her everyday life . . . their ‘new normal.’ I believe God knew exactly who dad would need to survive his life.”

And survive, he has.

For more on Duerksen’s journey, see the story on the front page of the Nov. 26 issue of the Cottonwood County Citizen of Windom, Minnesota on newsstands in the Windom area. 

Here at FGGAM we are so thankful for newspaper’s like the Cottonwood County Citizen that shine the light of Jesus and their community!

I am blessed that this is my hometown newspaper and further blessed that I write a devotional column in the Citizen! PRAISE GOD!

When I asked Dave Fjeld of the Citizen if I could post this at FGGAM, he said sure and he wanted the Citizens to get full credit, but I also think Dave wrote the article and what a great work he has done capturing this Godly story! Dave is such a Godly man.

God Bless the Cottonwood County Citizen and staff!