In August, Travis Quario was thinking he'd be lucky to see his daughter Delaney turn 8 in a few years. Now, there's a fair chance he will walk Delaney down the aisle on her wedding day.
If and when that happens, there's also a very good chance Wayne Conway '94 will be on the invitation list.
In September, Conway donated a kidney to Quario, a gravely ill Iowan who Conway had never met and whose prospects for living a long life were growing shorter by the day.
"It just means, beyond words, anything I could tell you," Quario said to Conway two days after the surgery. "This was my last chance and you saved my life."
How's that for enriching a life?
"I've never been married, never had a child," Conway said when asked how it felt to meet the man to whom he had donated a potential life-saving organ. "It's the best feeling I have ever had."
Not quite a month after the surgery, Conway described the recovery process as "a lot harder than I thought it was going to be."
The former St. Ambrose football player has stayed active through the age of 45. "I like to play softball, golf, hunt and fish," he explained. "I went from being a very healthy, very active person to pretty much not being able to leave the house for weeks. It was 2 ½ weeks before I was able to drive."
In mid-October, Conway did manage to drive an hour-and-a-half from his Johnston, Iowa, home to his former hometown of Melrose, Iowa. "That pretty much took it out of me," he said. "Every bump you hit, your whole body shakes and causes pain."
All of that notwithstanding, Conway said of being a live organ donor, "I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
"Meeting Travis, his mother and father and his daughter was amazing," he added. "I have a picture of myself, Travis and his daughter from when I visited a few days after I got out of the hospital, and that is something I will keep always."
According to the National Kidney Foundation, 12 people die each day in the United States while waiting for a new kidney. More than 100,000 people currently wait for life-saving kidney transplants in the United States, the foundation's website said.
In 2014, 17,105 kidney transplants took place in the U.S., with 5,500 transplanted kidneys coming from live donors.
Frequently, but not always, a live donor will be a friend or family member. Conway looked into becoming a live donor after a friend had done likewise. That woman became an anonymous donor after first attempting to give a kidney to an ailing friend, only to learn she was not a suitable match. Conway initially signed up in hopes he would be a match for that friend-in-need. When he wasn't, however, he too decided to be a "humanitarian" donor.
In December of last year, doctors at Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines found a match. It was Quario, whose body previously had rejected two transplanted kidneys, including one from his father.
A transplant procedure was scheduled for near Christmas, but when Quario suffered complications from Crohn's disease, the surgery was postponed, rescheduled, and then postponed again.
An executive resolution manager with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage in West Des Moines, Conway credited his bosses with showing patience as he scheduled and rescheduled leaves-of-absence.
Doctors offered the option of finding a healthier recipient, but Conway deferred. Due to procedural policy, Conway did not know who his recipient would be, but he had been told that he might be the man's last chance.
That's exactly what Quario told him when they met for the first time on Oct. 1, two days after the transplant.
"It is beyond anything I could have ever hoped for," Quario told a Des Moines television reporter that day. "And a total stranger did that for me."
Conway said donating an organ is a bit bigger than the several gallons of blood he has donated over the years. He also volunteers for Special Olympics and Meals from the Heartland. But live organ donation simply became something Conway knew he would do as he studied the donation process and the vast recipient need.
"The biggest thing for me is, growing up Catholic, going to school at St. Ambrose, everything was always about trying to be a better person," he said. "Helping others. Doing what is right. That played an important part in deciding to do this. It wasn't an easy decision."
Given the level of need, donating a kidney is something Conway would urge any able-bodied person to consider. The reward, he said, is profound.
"I didn't realize what kind of effect it would have on the recipient," he said. "Travis will be able to be with his daughter for hopefully a long time. Knowing that is the greatest feeling I could ever describe."
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