LUMC Hosts Candle Lighting Ceremony to Commemorate Donors

MAYWOOD, IL – In recognition of Donate Life Month, Loyola University Medical Center will host its 32nd annual candle lighting ceremony in honor of organ and tissue donors, their families and countless health care team members. Loyola Medicine colleagues will gather with transplant recipients, their families and donor families to remember those who gave the gift of life and encourage others to become organ donors. The ceremony will be held in the atrium of the Loyola Outpatient Center and followed by light refreshments.

Terri Thede will be one of the speakers sharing their story. Terri made the selfless decision to donate a kidney to a transplant patient at Loyola Medicine she had never met. Thede's altruism jump-started a living-donor kidney exchange that enabled two other Loyola patients to receive lifesaving kidney transplants. The three transplants were performed simultaneously.

"As a 2017 Loyola living kidney donor, I’m honored to attend the candlelight ceremony," Thede said. "It reminds me of the difference living donors and donor families make to those waiting for an organ. My experience moved me so much that I made a career change to assist others considering the living donation option. I am grateful to the Loyola team for their work on behalf of living donors."

Thede is now the Vice President and Donor Connect Project Manager and non-directed kidney donor at the National Kidney Donation Organization. She said she knew the enormous difference a kidney transplant can make to a patient who otherwise would have to rely on dialysis. "If I could change one person's life, I felt it was very important to do so."

As of March 2024, over 100,000 individuals in the United States are in need of life-saving organ transplants. In 2023, there were 46,630 transplants, according to UNOS, a non-profit organization that manages the nation's organ transplant system. Chirantan Mangukia, MD, surgical director of Lung Transplantation at Loyola Medicine, has devoted his career to giving patients new life. He encourages everyone to register as an organ donor, "It's the most precious commodity in the world, You can spend billions or trillions, but you can't just get an organ. So it is very important. It's like transferring one soul to another."

The Loyola Transplant Center provides expert care for heart, lung, kidney, liver, pancreas and bone marrow and stem cell transplants, including multi-organ transplants. In 2023, Loyola Medicine performed 400 transplants, and the Living Donor Program had over 51 participants. Experts in surgery, nutrition, social work, financial coordination, physical therapy and psychology work together to guide patients and donors through the transplant process.

The event will also feature ambassadors from Gift of Hope who coordinate the organ and tissue donation process and provide education about the importance of organ and tissue donation to the public and health care professionals in Illinois and northwest Indiana. Since 1986, their efforts have saved the lives of more than 23,000 organ transplant recipients and improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of tissue transplant recipients.