"Ride of Your Life" raises awareness

Everyday approximately 77 Americans receive a lifesaving organ transplant - while 17 other individuals die waiting for one.

The number of people needing organ transplants is growing faster than the number of individuals registering to donate organs. Sisters' own Chris Klug, a liver transplant recipient himself, hopes to narrow this gap by bringing public awareness to the need for people to register as organ donors (see related story, page 42).

Klug, who took home the bronze medal for the United States in parallel giant snowboarding at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, brought his message to Sisters residents last Thursday night. Sisters Athletic Club and Sisters Movie House joined forces to host the Oregon premiere of Klug's documentary, "Ride of Your Life."

Klug told The Nugget: "My goal for the documentary is to get people to think about the organ donation message."

As the event started, folks gathering on the lawn behind Sisters Athletic Club to meet Klug and enjoy hors d'oeuvres presented by FivePine executive chef David Berger. In the background the sounds of singer-songwriter Monica Offield, filled the air.

Only four months ago, on April 10, Offield received a long-awaited kidney transplant.

After the reception, event-goers strolled to Sisters Movie House for the screening of "Ride of Your Life." The documentary is sponsored by the Chris Klug Foundation and received the Extreme Sports Film Award at the 2007 Delray Beach (Florida) Film Festival.

As lights went down in the movie house's large theater to more than a capacity crowd, the audience followed Klug through the 2006 World Cup snowboarding season and learned that transplant recipients live healthy, active and full lives.

Intertwined into the film's message are the stories of two Denver women, 17-year-old Hannah Townsend and 28-year-old Sonya Byrd, each experiencing the process of waiting for and going through an organ transplant.

Although Thursday night's screening was directed to adults, Klug's goal is to show the documentary to as many middle and high school students as possible.

"I think Chris wants to reach the younger people. He would like to reach all of those kids, and that's what they're going to use it (the documentary) for," said Klug's father-in-law Ray April.

"Our foundation is going to sponsor a shorter version of the documentary hopefully for every health class in the country eventually," said Klug. "Often times the very first time that anyone thinks about organ donation awareness is when they're approached by the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) representative (when they are getting their drivers licenses). The representative is like: 'Do you want to be an organ donor?' The kid thinks: 'I'm not sure about that' or 'yes' or 'no.'"

By showing the film to health classes or drivers education classes, students will be knowledgeable about being an organ donor before being asked whether or not they wish to register.

They will learn "hey, this is what this issue is all about. Think about it," said Klug.

According to April, the film will also be used to help transplant patients through the transplant process.

"I've asked Chris (Klug): 'What do you do? What do you accomplish? What's the biggest thing you do?' Chris said: 'I think that it's that I show the future (transplant) recipient that they can have a life after a transplant,'" April said.

Proceeds from Thursday's $20-per-person fund-raiser were donated to Klug's foundation.

"Obviously, we're going to cover a few of the expenses, but a lion's share of the proceeds of this are going to be donated to the Chris Krug Foundation (www.chrisklugfoundation.org)," said Sisters Movie House owner Lisa Clausen.

"Probably $1,500, maybe $2,000 will be donated tonight for the Chris Klug Foundation," said Tate Metcalf, part-owner and manager of Sisters Athletic Club.

For Clausen, Thursday's event held special significance, as her brother Kent Clausen received simultaneous pancreas and kidney transplants several years ago (see related story, page 43).

Clausen told The Nugget that when given the opportunity to host Thursday's event, she could not respond quickly enough. Being one of the first venues in Klug's efforts to organize screenings of the documentary across the U.S. was an honor for Sisters.

Plans are in the making for the documentary to air on PBS, and the eventual release of a DVD is contemplated.

"Chris has the ability to tell the story around the world ... to help build the awareness for organ donation," said Clausen.

Twelve years ago Sisters Movie House owner Lisa Clausen learned that she was a perfect match to donate the kidney that her brother Kent Clausen desperately needed. But Lisa's kidney alone did not solve Kent's problem. A diabetic for more than 30 years since he was a child, Kent also required a pancreas.

"I was diagnosed with diabetes when I was 14 years old," said Kent. "During that 30th year which was 1995, my kidneys failed in September...," he added.

Lisa volunteered to give one of her kidneys to Kent, but doctors were skeptical.

"Because pancreas transplants were still a little bit in their infancy ... what they would usually do was to transplant donor organs from the same donor. They knew so much about kidney rejection that they figured if your body was going to reject the kidney, it would probably reject the pancreas, because the pancreas is just a little bit of a different animal than the kidney. It's a little more temperamental," Kent said.

"We all talked together and decided that it would be better if I waited for a kidney/pancreas donor," he said.

While waiting for a donor, Kent went on a natural form of dialysis called peritoneal dialysis.

"There's a membrane that wraps around your internal organs. It's between the muscles of your internal organ cavity.... Actually, it filters your blood," Kent said.

A shunt was inserted that allowed Kent to "...take out the bad fluid that had been filtered naturally by that membrane. Then, once you get that all out, you'd put some clean fluid in that was delivered to me every week," Kent explained.

He was able to conduct the dialysis process on his own, hooking it up any place at any time.

"You had to do it four times a day: morning; noon; night and before you went to bed," Kent said.

Finally in April 1996, a two-organ donor was found, and Kent's life changed forever.

"As soon as they were able to get the arteries hooked up and blood started to flow to both of the organs, the pancreas started producing insulin, and I was normal within an hour," Kent said. "When I went in for the transplant my blood sugar level was over 500. Normal blood sugar level is 80 to 100. It took them 12 and a half hours to do my operation. When I finally came out, the doctors told my family that my blood sugar had come down to normal, and it has been normal ever since," Kent said.

According to Kent, at the time he received his transplant, 70 percent of kidney/pancreas transplant patients had experienced some kind of a rejection episode due to the drug therapy they were using. Kent, however, was fortunate as he was given a new drug called CellCept.

"I have never had a rejection episode," Kent said, "and they started using it (CellCept) with all their other patients and cut the rejection episodes down to just minimal."

Kent, like Olympic bronze medalist Chris Klug who is a liver transplant recipient, will have to take anti-rejection drugs every day for the remainder of his life, but for him taking the drugs is a small price to pay for the quality of life that has been given to him because of his organ transplants.