ROCHESTER, Minn. — At 4:53 a.m. on Friday, 47-year-old Stacia Carroll's morning shower was interrupted by an unexpected phone call. It was her surgeon.
"He called and [I] definitely wasn't expecting the news that the recipient had a infection that was detected in the bloodstream," Carroll told News 8's Collin Riviello. "He and his team spoke and determined that it just simply was not safe to proceed with the transplant surgery today."
Carroll, now devastated, had prepared herself mentally for weeks, and so did her friends and family. She wouldn't be able to donate her liver to someone in need — for the second time in just half a year.
Her planned recipient is one of the 103,894 people in the country waiting for a life-altering organ donation. The most needed organ according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is a kidney — about 85% of those on the waitlist are waiting for one.
But for the Bettendorf mom who had traveled to Rochester, Minnesota less than 48 hours earlier with her husband, a realization occurred: that another organ donation attempt had failed.
"Clearly, this is a definitive pause — that it's not the right time," Carroll said over the phone just hours after her surgeon broke the news.
In May of 2022, Carroll, a benefit and wellness specialist with Genesis Health Systems, heeded a call that got answered less than 600 times in Iowa that year.
"My longtime local pediatrician, Dr. Omar, his family reached out publicly through Facebook indicating that Dr. Omar had a rare form of liver cancer," Carroll said. "And they were looking for individuals to step forward to be tested basically through Mayo Clinic as potential donors."
So Carroll reached out and after anxiously sitting on a list for months as the Mayo Clinic went through the process of determining who were likely good candidates, she finally got called into the clinic in November for a week full of testing.
But then, she received "the news."
"After that point, I went home and sadly and unexpectedly, Dr. Omar passed away just four days after my testing was completed," Carroll said. "So that really changed how we were going to proceed because that time I really was being evaluated, knowing that I was being a directed donor with an intended recipient that I knew."
As a first-time prospective organ donor, this was something she had never experienced. But according to the Iowa Donor Network, 17 people die every day nationwide, waiting on the list. A need that Carroll wanted to try and help meet.
"So, I, after speaking with my family, and a lot of thought and discernment decided that I would go ahead and stay on their [Mayo Clinic's] non-directed list," Carroll said."
Then in early March of 2023, Carroll's own wish to save a life was answered. This time for a woman she had never met.
"I don't know anything about the recipient," Carroll said. "That's kind of how it's supposed to be. There will be an opportunity for me and the recipient to disclose who we are to one another if we desire to. My plan is to do that."
According to the Iowa Department of Transportation, 1.6 million Iowans are registered organ, eye and tissue donors. IDOT says about 98% of those registered do so at the DMV.
But that's not the only opportunity to register as an organ donor.
Iowa Donor Network Hospital Services Coordinator Mikaela Stanek says another way registrations are collected is through Logan's Law.
"Logan's Law is when you go to get your hunting, fishing or for trapping license in the state of Iowa, the Department of Natural Resources would ask you if you'd like to register to become an organ and tissue donor if you're not already registered," Stanek said. "And that really has been another prominent way[of collecting organ donor registrations] just because you're not renewing your driver's license every year or going to the DMV every single year."
But for Carroll, she's not afraid of going through this process every year if it means bringing hope to someone else's life. Even at the cost of several months of recovery.
"I mean, life is so precious, right?" Carroll said. "You know, none of us are gifted tomorrow. I had this thought the other day. I thought, what if I was the recipient hearing that same news, that they had found a match?"
A thought that Carroll still has even now.
"You know, [I'm] still kind of, without words, in some respects, just because there's so many moving parts, and so many things that have to be coordinated in order to arrive at this point," Carroll said. "But, you know, I'm very proud of the Mayo Clinic Team and comforted knowing that they treat safety as the paramount importance for both the donor and the recipient."
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