Stacey Knox gains a kidney, but loses her father

Sitting in a Philadelphia hospital bed, Stacey Knox has had plenty of time to reflect on her father's last gift to her.

Anthony Jon Jenkins was attempting to cross Route 40 in New Castle when he was hit by a car and then a pickup truck. He never awoke from the trauma.

“Dad always said, 'You're my kid. I'd give my life for you',” Knox said.

On Aug. 8, he did.

The night of the accident, Knox said, she woke up from a deep sleep to a police officer pounding on the front door of her Kendale Road home. She and her husband, Francis, drove straight to her father's bedside in Christiana Hospital where churning machines were keeping him alive.

Knox spent the next few hours talking to her father in her soft and relaxed way, telling him she loved him. As his only daughter, she said, she knew she would eventually have to make a final decision on his care, a wish he shared with her during better times. “He told me he didn't want to live like that hooked up to machines,” she said.

Before she made her final decision, Knox said, a man from the Gift of Life approached her about organ donation. He explained how her father's situation was unique – only one in 200 people on life support qualify for organ donation.

In Jenkins' case, Knox said, the crash that left him comatose miraculously left his internal organs intact and undamaged.

“Dad was hit so hard it knocked his shoes off, but doctors said his insides were OK,” she said.

A hit to his head in January affected his judgement and ability to gauge distance, which may explain why he tried to cross the busy corridor.

“Maybe he didn't know how far away the car was,” Knox said.

Recalling conversations she had with her father after the head injury, Knox said, Jenkins liked the idea of organ donation.

In fact, she said, he had tried to give Knox, who suffers from Type 1 diabetes, one of his kidneys to replace her failing one. Doctors had ruled him out as a donor because of a previous heart attack.

So when the man came by her father's hospital room inquiring about organ donation, Knox said, she knew her father would say yes.

And when the man found out Knox had been on a transplant list for years, a decision was made to ensure Knox got one of his kidneys. Other transplant recipients have also benefited from Jenkins' organs. His remaining kidney, liver and lungs have been transplanted; his brain and heart went to research, Knox said.

Knox was in the University of Pennsylvania hospital for about a month while her body acclimated to the new kidney. Through a strange twist of faith, she said, it turned out that the husband of her father's first cousin was in a room next to hers following a liver transplant.

“That was the weirdest thing,” she said. “What's the chance of that happening.”

Connecting with her extended family has been a blessing, she said. Her mother passed away in 2002, and five of her father's surviving siblings are spread across Delaware, Virginia and North Carolina.

At her home in Lewes, she and Francis have three Labradors – Daisy, Youngblood and Lily – who are their babies.

She hasn't seen much of them lately. Quiet, calm, with big blue eyes and her brown hair pulled back in a chignon, Knox returned to the Cape Region for a brief visit Aug. 26. Friends stopped to say hi as she got lunch at her favorite spot, The General Store in Peddlar's Village.

“I'm doing good,” she said to one woman, although, husband Francis pipes in the drive down is tough.

They are looking forward to spending time in Philadelphia when things slow down.

For the next few weeks, they will stay at The Gift of Life home, 15 minutes from University of Pennsylvania hospital and a quick hop for her to meet with doctors who are monitoring the transplant. The couple will still be in the outpatient home when Pope Francis makes his historic visit to Philadelphia.

“That should be exciting,” Francis said.

Once she completes treatment, Knox said, she will take steroids the rest of her life in order for her body to adjust to the kidney transplant. Doctors told her the kidney had miles on it, since her father was 60, but it should last another eight to 15 years, Knox said.

The whole experience has been bittersweet: She finally received a kidney to replace her failing one, but she lost her father to get it.

Knox said she plans to eventually hold a memorial service for her father. An upstate funeral home, Congo, cremated his remains for free and has held them until she is ready to pick them up. She said she is forever grateful to them and everyone else who has supported her throughout her father's death and her recovery. Most of all, she thanks her dad.

“I know he's proud,” Knox said. “He was going to be the one who helped me when I got my new kidney, and in a way, he still is.”