Michael & Jamie: An Interview with an Organ Recipient and a Donor’s Father

In today's episode former Guests Jamie Alcroft and Michael Liben come on the program together to deliver a powerful portrayal of two sides of the organ donation coin -- with Jamie Alcroft we hear about what it means to be an organ donor recipient and with Michael Liben we discover what it means to be the family member of an organ donor whose life gave many other people hope. Tune in to hear Anna interview both of these inspiring men and during the final segment, you can hear the gentlemen even talk with one another about their experiences.

Transcript

spk_1:   0:04
Welcome to heart to heart With Anna. I am Anna Gorski and the host of today's program. This is the third episode of Season 12 and our theme this season is organ donation and transplantation. I'm very excited today to feature two guests, and both of the guests have appeared on shows earlier this season. We have Michael Leavitt and Jamie All Croft. Both of them have come on to talk about their stories regarding organ donation and transplantation. Today you'll hear the rest of the story. Jamie All Croft has been entertaining audiences as part of the comedy duo Mac and Jamie for over 35 years. His appearances with Mac on The Tonight Show, both with Johnny Carson and Jay Leno, led to 125 original episodes of the syndicated half hour comedy Break with Mac and Jamie. Today's show is entitled Michael and Jamie, an interview with an organ donor recipient and a donor's father. Michael is the father of Lee l'll. Even Leo was born with Double Albert right ventricle or D O. R V and a ventricular septal defect, a VSD. In her life, she had three heart surgeries at age four, Leah was diagnosed with autism and then, at age 13 with epilepsy Michael Open to Season 12 by telling us about what it was like for him when his starter passed away and his family decided to donate her kidneys, her lungs, her liver, her pancreas, skin, cartilage and a cornea. Jimmy are. Croft, on the other hand, received both a liver and a heart, and he was on. Episode two of this season will be talking with Michael and Jamie about what it was like for them to face death, what it meant to them to welcome life and what organ donation and transplantation means to them. And I'm going to start with you. Welcome to heart to heart with Anna Jamie.

spk_2:   1:47
Thank you, man. That's wonderful to be here with you and Michael

spk_1:   1:50
and welcome to you, Michael. It's good to have you back.

spk_4:   1:53
It's always nice to be here. Thank you.

spk_1:   1:55
Well, Michael, earlier this season, you and I talked about some of the people who received Leo's organs. Some people don't understand how donating your daughter's organs could turn this sadness of her death into a celebration of how her life could somehow be a blessing for somebody else. Can you tell us about the phone call you had with one of your daughters recipients? And how that made you view your daughter's life and death?

spk_4:   2:18
Yeah, gladly. I was just working around the house one day and I got a phone call from someone I didn't know. It sounded like an older woman, and she wanted to make sure she was talking to the right person. And I began to gradually understand from what she was saying, that she was probably one of the recipients. And then she told me she had received two lungs, and at that moment I realized that every breath she took and every word she spoke originated in my daughter's lungs, which was a very impressive moment. Of course, I brought a tent like I'm probably about to right now.

spk_1:   2:46
It just gave me goose bumps when you just said that for you to recognize that every word she was speaking to you arose from your daughter's. Really? That's

spk_4:   2:57
right. And her name, as it turns out, is muzzle, which in Hebrew means fortune or luck. And she did have good fortune. Apparently she was 66 years old. I believe when she got the lungs, and this was about a year later when she called me and it was a difficult conversation because she felt a certain kind of guilt that she had somehow received her second life because somebody had to die for it. And I calmed her. And I said, You know, my daughter was dying anyway and then she didn't die in order to do this, the death was a given and that the best thing we could do at that moment, in our great misfortune was to make the best of it in a way that could help somebody else live. And she said, Well, the doctors told me that on my family told me that my rabbi told me that my social worker told me that. But until you told me that didn't work, she somehow needed some sort of absolution from the donor or from the side of the donor that made it all right. I don't know if everybody feels that, but she certainly did. It was a moment where I felt that I was a year later, after the physical transplant I was completing for her the process. In fact, I only spoke to one of two more times. After that, it was on the anniversary and she's fine and doing well and it's always a pleasure to hear her voice because in a sense, I'm hearing my daughter's breath coming back at me now when we made this decision, I think I've said this a 1,000,000 times. But the decision to donate was the easiest decision we ever made because we took a very difficult moment and we turned it as much as we could into something positive. To save a life is always a good thing. To a more realize her in a meaningful way is a good thing in any part of her that can continue to walk on. This Earth is also a good thing and so we were very much aware that the night that we were holding ourselves together and crying for families were rejoicing and we were very okay with that. It didn't make the pain go away, but it made us feel that there was some sort of meaning to what we had been through.

spk_1:   4:49
Yeah, I think that's what's so hard when you're facing that situation is how do you find meaning of what is so traumatic and so abysmal? And you did You found that silver lining and you were the miracle that somebody else was waiting for.

spk_4:   5:05
You know, it's when I don't feel like a miracle. I just feel like I did what needed to be done. We had for 15 years been concerned with questions of life and death, and this is a question of life. Only death was given. We had no real. We couldn't do anything there. We always try to do what we believe is the right thing. And this didn't seem to me like there were too many options here. There is the right thing to do, and you do it didn't feel particularly heroic about it.

spk_1:   5:26
Wrong. That takes me into the next question I have for you because you and I talk on a regular basis and we've had that whole hero debate where some people have indicated to you that you're a hero and you've told me that you don't feel like a hero because you donated Lee else or against talk to me a little bit more about that.

spk_4:   5:43
Well, people started calling us heroes right from the beginning to but a brave decision and what a hero think. There's nothing brave about it. You can do the right thing or you can not do the right thing. There aren't that many choices, and I can't justify not donating perfectly good organs if they can help somebody. So that's one thing. But the other thing is that recently I went to speak to around 100 50 high school students and I went because I contacted the local organ donation organization and they brought me along and three of us spoke. There was the guy who spoke officially from the organization. There was me who spoke as a donor's father, and then there was a recipient there, and that was a shock to me because they didn't tell me they were bringing recipient and he was a liver recipient and we had donated liver and he looked at me and I looked at him and he said, You know, it's a really great thing that you did, you know, it's gonna here. He said that I was a hero for making this organ available and I said, Look, you know, we didn't do anything. You had to wait in the hospital for this to happen, you had to go under the knife. You had to do a very, very difficult procedure which may or may not have worked. That's the heroic part. You went ahead and took this opportunity to live. That's heroic. We simply felt that we were doing the right thing and it goes back and forth and there's no end to it. And people call me what they want. But we just did what we thought was the right thing to do with the time, and there was really a lot of their option for us.

spk_1:   6:57
How do you think Lee? I would feel about it.

spk_4:   6:59
It's funny. You should ask that because Leora right from the beginning said, I think Leo would say, Mommy, this is a good thing to do And since he was autistic, I don't think she would have actually said much of anything. But I want to believe in. We are very, very much wants to believe that if we asked her if there was some way to communicate with him from the other side and we explained what we were doing that she would be in favor of it. That's not a question I can really answer. That's an answer that makes us feel good. And that's all right. I really can't answer that. What she would say, I would like to believe that, you know, being our daughter and living with us and thinking the way we did that she would be in favor of that. I think logically. And it's not a logical question. It's not a logical issue, but logically, there really is nothing else to dio. If you can save a life, you know, we say in Judaism, say if you save one life, it's a Ziff. You saved an entire world and you have because every life is its own world, it's its own family. It's on relationships. I don't know a lot about the people who live upstairs for me, but they have their world and I have my world and they're real and they're complete. And if you can help somebody, then you really do save a lot of people. It ripples down the chain. That's not just the person who received the organ. It's his family. It's his friends, people he's going to meet in the future that he wouldn't otherwise know that

spk_5:   8:16
tonight Forever by the Baby Blue Sound collective. I think what I love so much about this CD is that some of the songs were inspired by the patient's many listeners will understand many of the different songs and what they've been inspired. Our new album will be available on iTunes. Amazon dot com. Spotify. I love the fact that the proceeds from this CD are actually going to help those with heart defects. Join music Home Tonight forever, huh?

spk_6:   8:52
Takes this hot industry. We're offering us a mechanical hot, and he said, now that I've had enough to give it to someone who's worthy, my father promised me a golden dressed twirling held my hand and asked me where I wanted to go. Whatever stripe for conflict that we experienced in our long career together was always healed by humor.

spk_4:   9:12
Heart to heart With Michael, Please join us every Thursday at noon, Eastern as

spk_0:   9:16
we talked with people from around the world who have experienced those most difficult moments, you are listening to heart to heart with Anna. If you have a question or comment that you would like to dress down, show police in an email to Anna Dworsky, at Anna at heart to heart with anna dot com. That's Anna at heart to heart with anna dot com Now back to heart to heart with

spk_1:   9:42
segment When we talked with Michael about facing the death of his daughter and the lives that she changed thanks to the donation of her organs Jamie, you were not facing certain death like what Michael faced. Although I think it felt pretty started for you that if you didn't get those transplants that you were going to be facing death.

spk_2:   10:01
Yeah, I was dying,

spk_1:   10:03
but with Michael, his daughter was already declared brain dead when they decided to go ahead and donate her organs. So can you tell us what it was like for you waiting for that organ and whether or not it was difficult for you to choose to be put on that transplant list?

spk_2:   10:21
Well, first off, I must express to Michael might eat deep regret your loss. I just can't imagine with this sorrow that you went through and, you know, you talk about being a hero to my way of thinking, a hero is someone who does the right thing at the right time. So in fact, that nomenclature does fit what you did. You did the right thing at the right time and so bless you for that. And the question was, how did I feel waiting?

spk_1:   10:48
What I'm wondering is, how difficult waas the choice for you to be put on that transplant list. I have several friends who have debated whether or not they want to be listed for transplant, because it's hard for them to envision taking somebody's organ after they have passed away.

spk_2:   11:07
Well, again, we go to what I discussed in in our previous episode. That I did with you was control. I have no control over the deaths that occur outside of my realm of existence. I'm not responsible for those deaths. So as far as feeling emotion is concerned, I had little emotion. Frankly, I am sorry for the death of anyone who dies. It certainly diminishes a zey human race. Yet the birth and the rebirth that takes place in this world every day is joyous is something to be joyous about, so it's hard not to feel guilty. But I don't feel guilty. It's hard not to feel selfish, but I don't feel selfish. I feel like This was my situation and a situation happened devoid of my sphere of influence. There was nothing I could do about it. So if someone dies and their life is taken away, they can give life as Leo dead. Through Michael and his wife, giving permission, they can give life. And the fact that he senses her breath and the conversation of the woman he speaks to on the foreigners is inspiring. It's wonderful. It does give me goose bumps to to think about that and to think about every beat of my heart takes, which is about 73 a minute, is thanks to someone who, beyond their control, I mean, they had no control over their death. The only thing they have control over is what happens to their organs when they depart. You know, will they leave that legacy of life or not? And this gentleman chose to leave a legacy of life, and I was happily the recipient. Michael, I can't imagine what it would be like to meet the person who received her corneas and knowing that what they're seeing is through her eyes. That's also just absolutely a miracle of modern medicine, and you know it's taken human beings a few decades to get used to the idea that they can save eight lives. Their skin tissue alone can save over 100 lives. But we're getting there, and it's true. People like you and decisions like you have made you and your wife have made Michael that move us forward as a race as a human race. I

spk_1:   13:19
love that. And I also love your definition of a hero. So now Michael can't get out of being a hero

spk_2:   13:24
now. You really can't. Yeah, you did the right thing at the right time.

spk_1:   13:29
Exactly. And really without thought. He just knew that was the right thing in his heart, and he just felt that it had to be done. But let's talk about bravery. Some people feel that it takes a certain level of bravery just to be on the waiting list for not one but two organs. How do you feel about that

spk_2:   13:48
now? I didn't Just like Michael doesn't feel like a hero. I didn't feel brave. I knew they were gonna have toe rip me open like a Christmas goose and slam that liver and slammed that hard in there. I did speak to my transplant surgeon. He said sometimes we need to use the paddles, but assume as we stitched your heart in, it started beating.

spk_1:   14:07
Wow.

spk_2:   14:08
So that was kind of nice to hear.

spk_1:   14:10
Yeah.

spk_2:   14:11
And, you know, I don't know what happens with the liver, but I don't feel brave at all. If it was something I had to do, I had to live. If you were hanging on to a cliff and you know you're gonna fall to your death, you hang on. You know, you hang on,

spk_1:   14:24
you hung on. But there are some people who would just like there are some people who would be afraid of all of the things that could happen. The fact that the organs could be rejected The fact that you have to go through massive amounts of rehabilitation and you're not gonna feel good for a while. I'm gonna feel really, really bad for a while before you feel better.

spk_2:   14:45
And I'm a six months now and I feel great. It was September 26 I'm a six months. I'm in a few days and I feel great. I'm past the problems and six months of pain or discomfort or inconvenience. Like I said in the last episode is a small price to pay for life.

spk_1:   15:07
And it sounds like you're filling your life full of humor and laughter. Little bit of introspection. Ah, lot of advocacy helping other.

spk_2:   15:16
I am a lot of advocacy, and I got up and did my first stand up set last week at a club You're in l. A. And I talked about my heart experience and it went very well. Yeah, but when

spk_1:   15:29
you joked about it, Wow, how is it? Very

spk_2:   15:32
well, they howled, goes great, and then I'm a Silver Smith. That's my hobby. So I made a bracelet for my daughter's birthday yesterday. I'm back on the bench, a CZ, they say. So I'm doing that and I'm reading the book and I'm ready. My techs talk and I'm gonna be doing more. Stand up. And to me, stand up is a form of advocacy because you basically take a group of strangers and changed their lives for a few minutes, make them laugh, make them think it's a very empowering profession to be in, and I love it, and I'm looking forward to get back

spk_0:   16:07
into it like

spk_2:   16:08
a Sam 46 going on 70. Nothing stopping me now.

spk_1:   16:14
I love it,

spk_6:   16:15
takes his heart into street. We're offering us a mechanical hot, and he said, Now that I've had enough to give it to someone worthy My father promised me a golden dressed twirl. It held my hand and asked me where I wanted to go. Whatever stride for conflict that we experienced in our long career together was always healed by humor.

spk_4:   16:36
Heart to heart With Michael Please join us

spk_0:   16:38
every Thursday at noon, Eastern as we talked with people from around the world who have experienced those most difficult

spk_5:   16:43
moments. I am with origami L jewelry and we personalized luck. It's it has helped me heal so much by having that locket. I've had other friends and customers who have created lockets. They'd love their lockets, and they gift lockets to people who are bereaved or they're celebrating somebody to get your own origami. Our luck it contact Nancy Jensen on Facebook for her website. Dancey dancey me, Dr Origami Owl

spk_0:   17:18
Heart to heart with Emma is a presentation of hearts, unite the globe and is part of the hug podcast network hearts Unite The Globe is a nonprofit organization devoted to providing resource is to the congenital heart defect community to uplift and power and enrich the lives of our community members. If you would like access to free resource, is pretending to the C H T community. Please visit our website at www congenital heart defects dot com for information about CHD, the hospitals that treat Children with CHD summer camps for CHD survivors and much, much more friends.

spk_1:   18:04
We're back and we're all in this studio together, and I'm going to give Michael the chance to ask Jamie a question.

spk_4:   18:12
Hi, Jamie. And thanks very much for your kind words owner. I know what you said before how you don't feel responsible for what happened to make the organs available for you, and I respect that. But I'm still curious in those first few moments or even before that, when you were in the hospital thinking, wondering what was gonna happen, Did it occur to you that at the same time your family would be singing and dancing that there would be a family that would be sitting and crying and did that have any effect on you?

spk_3:   18:39
Absolutely. And I have total empathy for their grief. I, too, have experienced grief in my life. So I know what it's like to lose a loved one thing many of us do. Unfortunately, so I'm an empathetic person, and I certainly felt empathy for them. Whoever they are. Like I say, I think this guy I've named him Brian, I don't know. I came up with the name that's with a Y B R Y, just to give him a name, and I thank him every day.

spk_4:   19:07
I'd like to add that I think that being a good comedian requires empathy. You have to understand what you're talking about in a way that you can make other people feel it in their gut and laugh. So I totally understand that.

spk_3:   19:18
Yeah, that's right. Short answer. I did course. Think about them, whoever they are and were. And whatever the circumstance was, which I'll never know.

spk_4:   19:26
Would you like to meet them?

spk_3:   19:27
They didn't want to meet me. It was their choice. So it's not applicable question because I had no choice in the matter. Would I like to meet them?

spk_4:   19:36
Yeah, that was because

spk_3:   19:37
I don't know. I honestly don't know the answer to that. If I have an opportunity to meet them, then I will decide whether I want to or not, and

spk_4:   19:47
whether I would

spk_3:   19:48
like to or not. The organs are functioning. The procedure took care of what it had to take care of, and that is my life, and I am also still a donor. And so someday, when I pass, I hope that my family's grief will be at least slightly alleviated by the fact that I'm giving life through my death.

spk_4:   20:08
It's interesting, because here it's the recipients option to meet, and I've had that phone call. I got a couple of facts messages to me from a second present, and I met one family and the family of a seven and 1/2 year old girl, and recently my mom wouldn't know he received. She received a kidney, and it's amazing because the day before, the mother had been told, we're just not going to get it, and they started packing up to go home. Yeah, and the cavalry came over the hill with my daughter's kid. And it's funny because my mother, now who's 91 was recently hospitalized and while we were sitting in the waiting room. This guy comes up, he says, Michael, is that you and I look up and it's the father of that little girl. I haven't seen them for four years, and he recognized me, and it just started all over again. I think I selfishly want to point out that this was that This is a Palestinian family because I think it's important to note that here we don't make a differentiation, whoever's eligible gets and they don't look at anything other than eligibility on a physical plane. So right that it was a very sweet

spk_3:   21:07
exactly the way it should be on.

spk_4:   21:09
It was a wonderful moment because I remember I went to meet them four years ago. I went to meet them. I don't know a lot of Arabic, but I know enough. Let me just preface this, that in Arab society, fatherhood is something you don't question. It's a sacred part of the family. And so when this guy looks at his daughter and points to me and he says to her in Arabic, he's also your father, that's the moment to present

spk_3:   21:30
Max. Beautiful,

spk_1:   21:31
beautiful Jamie, Did you have any questions that you would like to ask Michael.

spk_3:   21:35
Well, you kind of put me on the spot here. I don't really have any questions. I feel so deeply for his loss, and I feel so happy that they did make that they may not feel like heroes that they made a heroic choice. So if you want to put it in those terms to donate their daughter's organs, it's a choice that I would hope everyone in the world would make. Given the same set of circumstances, I wish I I felt more than just grateful to my donor. And I'm going to go on and try to pay tribute to his life, as I'm sure that the recipients from from Lille will do. There is a certain responsibility that comes with receiving someone else's organs and and that responsibility is to do something about it. Two. Live your life and perhaps a different way, and I have chosen advocacy. Try toe pay back and you never know these people I'm speaking to. They might donate ah, heart or liver or cornea to someone who goes home and just raises a family and sends their kids to college. But one of their kids goes on to find a cure for cancer. I mean, you never know what you're going to perpetuate or propagate in life or in the world by donating. It's such an important part of death is the donation part because we can now do it, give us the power to do anything to be like him or her, and we're becoming more like him and hurt all the time.

spk_4:   23:07
I just want to add, I think, also from the side of the donor, I feel a very strong sense of advocacy. And as soon as we had finished all of the technical on religious matters of mourning, you know, she had been our project. She had been our what to do today for 15 and 1/2 years, and we woke up this well, now what do we do? And I just said, Well, you know, let's get in touch with the donation people women offer Our service is to speak to anybody who's on the fence. You know, two languages. I can hit a lot of people if they would just give me that chance. And finally this year we started to go out and speaking. I think we've got some more coming. And advocacy is a really big thing because it's very soothing in a way, because it continues to make meaning from Leo's death, and it continues to make meaning So many other people.

spk_3:   23:49
Well, I think we should go on the road together. Michael.

spk_4:   23:51
You know what? I nothing would please me more. I'm only 58. Technically, I'm a baby boomer because my dad was in World War Two. So if there's room on the bench for 1/3 boomer, call me. I'm coming,

spk_1:   24:02
OK? I love this has been a great episode. I feel like we've done so much to shed light on advocacy from both side from the donor side and from the recipient side. So I want to thank you both for coming on your show. Thank you so much, Michael, for coming back.

spk_4:   24:18
Always a pleasure.

spk_1:   24:19
And thank you so much, Jamie, for coming back. Well,

spk_3:   24:22
thank you. Ana loved being here and thank you, Michael, for what you did.

spk_4:   24:27
And thank you. Thank you. Please fear perspective. I always enjoy speaking to recipients. It it gives me a certain sense of I don't think closures the Oiler, but continuation I like to hear more.

spk_3:   24:37
Well, I'm very proud of you.

spk_1:   24:38
Yeah, I kind of feel like it's a phoenix going on here. You know, we have the death, but then we have the rebirth, and it's a beautiful thing to see. So that does conclude this episode of heart to heart with Anna. Thanks for listening today. Friends find us on YouTube and subscribe. And

spk_5:   24:53
remember, my friends, you are not

spk_0:   24:58
Thank you again for joining us this week Way Hope you have been inspired on Empowered to become an advocate for the congenital heart defects community Heart to heart with Anna With your hose down, Dworsky can be heard every Tuesday at 12. Noon eastern time.