The family of Kaylea Curry shares their story during National Pediatric Transplant Week, recalling her tragic death in 2015 and their decision to donate her organs, giving life to five others. They reflect on the difficult but meaningful choice made during a heartbreaking time.
FAIRBANKS, Alaska - To commemorate National Pediatric Transplant week, the family of Kaylea Curry is remembering their lost loved one, whose death in 2015 was not the end of her story.
On December 18 of that year, Kaylea, the fourth of five children, died suddenly of an arteriovenous malformation in her right cerebellum, a kind of brain hemorrhage.
“It just burst one day, and we lost her the next,” said Kaylea’s mother Christy. “They told me that she’d been life flighted in, that she had a bleeding in her brain,” recalled Meagan Iozzo, Kaylea’s oldest sister. 14 years old at the time of Kaylea’s death, Meagan remembers how she and her sister were inseparable.
“It’s such a surreal feeling to be like, ‘I’m never gonna, you know, talk to her on the, I’m never gonna talk to her again, I’m never gonna see her again,’” she said. Once it was clear that Kaylea’s surgery was unsuccessful, her parents, both organ donors themselves, talked with representatives from LifeCenter Northwest, Alaska’s federally designated organ-procurement organization, and decided to donate what they could from Kaylea to those in need.
“You don’t really think about, you know, making that decision for your child,“ Christy explained. ”So, we knew that we wanted to do everything that we could just to make her life, I guess, be able to extend to someone else. And it was a hard decision, but it wasn’t one that we hesitated on, knowing that it’s five days before Christmas, and it’s, it’s something she would have wanted.
" Remembering the decision, Christy saw it as an opportunity to give someone else a life, even as her daughter was losing hers. According to Christy, “She ended up donating both her kidneys and her liver and then her corneas and heart valves,” bringing much-needed gifts to at least five people.
More than 10 years later, “We think about her every day and there are, there are little things that show up throughout the days and throughout the years and throughout the months,” Christy said.
“Sometimes it could just be, you know, you see a rainbow at a very specific time or, you know, the northern lights come out on a day that you’re really, you know, she’s heavy on your heart. ”“Kaylea was somebody that was always concerned about other people. She was, you know, this bright, vivacious little person, and she always wanted to help people. She always wanted to be of service,” her mother said.
“Kaylee and I... definitely knew each other in previous life. You know, we were meant to, you know, go through this life together at least for the duration that we did, and she was my best friend,” she said. An avid reader, Kaylea showed an interest in warrior characters and dragons, and would donate the books she read to her school library.
“Kaylee would have given the shirt off her back to anybody who needed it,” Meagan said. After Kaylea’s donations had gone out, Christy sent letters to the recipients, hearing back from one person who had received a kidney from Kaylea saying that he used to be on dialysis, but was now able to go hiking.
According to Ashlei Lind, Director for External Affairs with LifeCenter Northwest, more than 100,000 people across the U.S. are currently waiting for a live-saving transplant, including 171 Alaskans, and between donating kidney, heart, pancreas, lungs and intestines, one person can save up to eight lives. Tissue donations including corneas, skin, bones, cartilage, tendons and heart valves, which in Alaska are handled by Life Alaska Donor Services, can heal more than 75 people per donor.
“It’s a remarkable and incredible gift that an individual can receive in terms of a life-saving transplant. Kaylea’s life-saving donation has inspired so many in her community to consider donation,” Lind said.
“Children awaiting transplants often require organs that are size matched to small bodies, so it really makes pediatric donation vital because they wouldn’t necessarily be able to receive an organ from somebody who was maybe an adult and notably larger in size,” Lind explained. Christy and Lind both recommend that those interested in donating organs upon their death make those wishes clear in advance with their family. Chugiak kindergartener competes for America’s Favorite Student title
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