Celebrating, giving life

TONY DODERO

This week’s column is all about life, or more specifically, the Relay

for Life and the Donate Life network.

Let’s start with the Relay for Life that begins today at Newport

Harbor High at 6 p.m. and ends Saturday at 6 p.m.

The Relay for Life is now in its fourth year and is a 24-hour

walkathon to raise funds for the American Cancer Society and is one

of about 3,000 similar relays that take place across the country.

If you’ve never been to the Relay for Life, it truly is a sight to

see Newport Harbor High decked out in tents and luminarias (lighted

candles placed in plastic bags as a tribute to those lives lost to

cancer).

It’s really a great family event with plenty of food and

entertainment and good conversation, most of it while walking on the

track.

I’ll be there today at 7 p.m. walking with my two daughters,

Danielle and Kristen, who at the young ages of 6 and 4 have already

had their lives altered by cancer.

They didn’t personally have cancer, but they never got a chance to

meet my wife’s father and their grandfather, Leo, who died of

complications from pancreatic cancer at the age of 42.

That’s nothing unique, of course. Cancer touches all of our lives.

I lost a childhood friend to leukemia, a form of cancer. He was

only 8 years old. My cousin succumbed to lymphoma in his mid 40s,

leaving behind three young daughters. And another close cousin, with

three young children, successfully battled back from stage 3 breast

cancer while in her early 30s.

That’s just my family.

Just last year, my mentor, good friend and former Daily Pilot

reporter and editor Robert “Bob” Barker lost a battle with a brain

tumor and earlier in the year, the Daily Pilot advertising director

Judy Oetting passed away after a short but heroic fight with

pancreatic cancer.

So come out and join me and my girls, the Daily Pilot team and

hundreds more community members as we’ll be walking and keeping in

our hearts all of those who lost the fight against cancer as well as

those who were able to fight and survive.

For more information please contact one of the following:

* Team Captains’ Liaison Angela Matthews at

[email protected].

* Event co-chair Anna Lisa Biason at [email protected].

* Event co-chair Stacy deBoom at [email protected].

* ACS Staff Partner David Schapira at [email protected] or

ACS Office at (949) 567-0635.

So speaking of survivors, the other topic for the week is Donate

Life.

I remember a friend of mine had a bumper sticker that read: “Don’t

take your organs to heaven because heaven knows we need them here.”

It’s a funny saying about a not-so-funny and touchy subject

And the truth is, donation of organs is so important for the

thousands of people across the country who are waiting for a new

kidney, liver, pancreas, cornea -- you name it, they probably need

it.

How do I know all of this? Well at the invite of Rotarians Kim

Kasell DeBroux and Roger McGonegal, I had lunch this week with a

fledgling hope-to-be chartered Costa Mesa Rotary Club members at the

Holiday Inn.

Wednesday’s lunch featured none other than Greenlight champion

Phil Arst, a past president of the Newport Balboa Rotary Club, who

gave a talk on organ donations.

“I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for that,” said Arst, who

five months ago received a transplant for a new liver.

Of course, organ donations are top of the mind at the Daily Pilot

as our fearless leader and publisher Tom Johnson received a new

kidney in December, care of his older brother, Phil.

Listening to Arst, I figured I was doing good since I have my

little donor sticker on my driver’s license.

But Arst pointed out that even with that in hand, many donations

just simply don’t happen. And even the ones that do happen come with

risks. One out of two people who get a transplant doesn’t make it,

Arst said.

He also pointed out that for all those who are identified as

donors, only 1% of them have their organs successfully transplanted

to those who need them.

With 90,000 people nationwide waiting for transplants, 18,000 in

California alone, it’s crucial that willing donors do everything they

can to ensure their organs are available when they don’t need them

anymore.

The best way to do that, Arst said, is to log on to the website

https://www.donatelifecalifornia .org.

Don’t waste any time. You never know whose life you may save.

For more information on donating organs or joining Rotary contact

Rotary District 5320 at (714) 921-1881.

* TONY DODERO is the editor. He may be reached at (714) 966-4608

or by e-mail at tony.dodero @latimes.com.