Anthony Glusko may have considered all the individuals his organs could aid when he turned sixteen and checked the box on his driver’s license application stating that, yes, he would donate his organs in the event of his untimely death.
He most likely had no idea how his choice would indirectly ease his own mother’s grief when, at the age of 24, Glusko, the Eagle Scout volunteer of the year and Bishop McDevitt High School graduate, passed away from a brain injury.
His mother valued his love of community service as much as his intelligence (he was pursuing a master’s degree in aerospace engineering at Penn State).
“It does help with the grief process,” Priscilla St. Jacques-Glusko stated. “And for me, knowing that he was able to give to others and others who are able to live on because of his donation is the most important thing.”
According to information St. Jacques-Glusko received from Gift of Life, the transplant organization that services the eastern half of Pennsylvania, among those individuals is the woman in her 70s who received Glusko’s liver.
In addition to up to 100 recipients of his bone marrow, it also includes the small child who received Glusko’s right kidney, the man in his 50s who received his right lung, and the lady in her 40s who received his pancreas.
And among them is the man who won Glusko over: Joe Leduc, 65, of Paw Paw, Michigan, which is close to Kalamazoo. This is very important for Priscilla.
Gift of Life provides a way to connect organ recipients and donor families.
The conflicted feelings that families sometimes experience when they talk to people who are still alive in part because their loved ones passed away are “very difficult,” according to Dwendy Johnson, community relations supervisor for Gift of Life. “And we truly respect their timing,” the statement reads.
Contrary to expectations, St. Jacques-Glusko was prepared before Leduc.
Leduc explained that it took him over a year to reply, “just because you — the guilt really starts to set in.”
First from a distance, St. Jacques-Glusko reassured Leduc. Last year, while in Detroit with her daughter and Anthony’s older sister, 31-year-old Jeaneatte, she arranged to visit Leduc, who had once owned the Leduc Blueberries farm.
Five years after doctors warned him he had fewer than 18 months to live without a heart transplant, Leduc sold the farm a year after his successful transplant, which he attributes to allowing him to meet three new grandkids and witness the marriage of two children.
In Almena Township, Van Buren County, he later ran and won the position of township supervisor.
The last portion of the narrative is not a small one: St. Jacques-Glusko and Leduc hugged when the families were eating supper together.
The ability to simply embrace him and hear his heartbeat was the most significant aspect of meeting him, according to St. Jacques-Glusko. Yes: listening to Glusko’s heart pounding inside Leduc’s chest while leaning on it.
National Donor Day falls on Friday, Valentine’s Day. On Saturday, it will be precisely five years ago Glusko passed away on February 15, 2020; Leduc received his heart on February 19.
It was a late-night phone call to the hospital that brought the worst news of St. Jacques-Glusko’s life.
A few days later, Leduc received the finest news of his life via early-morning phone call, which he knows he shouldn’t feel bad about because St. Jacque-Glusko told him so.
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Despite leading a rather healthy lifestyle, Leduc discovered at the age of 40 that he had a congenital heart problem and would eventually require a transplant.
Four months before his life-saving transplant at what is now Corewell Health (previously Spectrum Health) Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids, he was diagnosed with heart failure at the age of 59.
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“It wouldn’t have even been possible,” Leduc remarked, referring to the majority of positive experiences he had over the previous five years.
It should come as no surprise that both Leduc and St. Jacques-Glusko promote organ and tissue donation.
The majority of states, including Michigan and Pennsylvania, permit citizens to list their desire to donate on their driver’s licenses. You can also register through Gift of Life or the local transplant organization.
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