Sometimes lives can be cut short prematurely, and priceless organs and tissues can be donated to people who really need them, ensuring that something positive comes out of a tragedy. The Hays County Commissioners Court recognized this by proclaiming April 2023 as National Donate Life Month in Hays County. The county urges all residents to consider becoming donors.[San Marcos,
When Lemuel Bradshaw first got bronchitis in April 1998, the then-28-year-old never could have imagined that heart transplants would become part of his life. After two weeks of antibiotics, he thought he was good to go.
Within months, the viral bronchitis damaged his heart. On Oct. 23, 1999, after just turning 30, he had his first heart transplant. He and his wife, Odessa, had been married about a year, and he had married into a family with three teenage daughters. I was really overwhelmed with just the prospect of getting the one, Bradshaw says of his heart transplant. In his mind, heart transplants were like the artificial hearts he had heard about in the 1980s. The patients never really lived.