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It's said we make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
It's hard to argue those sentiments, especially if you're Illiana Turnini. The 34-year-old healthcare professional, living in San Marcos, has dedicated her life to giving by working in the field of nursing. But not long ago she was on the receiving end of a gift, one that changed her quality of life but only after the passing of a generous stranger.
Growing up in the Rio Grande Valley, in the city of Weslaco, Turnini was a precocious child who was into tumbling and cheerleading at an early age.
"I was a Panther cheerleader pretty much my whole life beginning at the age of five, until my freshman year in high school, when we moved to San Marcos," she said. "So, my youth has been both intense and athletic."
After moving to San Marcos, and upon graduating, Turnini gave birth to her first child only to discover she had a degenerative hip condition.
"So, all those years of cheerleading, gymnastics and jumping exacerbated the problem," Turnini said. "It forced the ligament to wear down."
Fast forward a couple of years later and her problem worsened as she and her husband were remodeling their home.
"I had a few hip, ‘clicks and pops' here and there — you know — the kind that means it's time for you to stretch," she said. "Nothing bothered me too much until we were remodeling our house a few years ago, and I took a tumble."
Illiana Turnini. Daily Record photo by Lance Winter
The couple had just changed the carpet and Turnini was wearing socks not realizing how slippery the floor had gotten.
"Down I went. I landed on my hip and my wrist, but I got up walked away thinking nothing about it," she said. "I did feel a little sore the next day and felt a little ‘pop,' but I said 'enough with it, it'll be fine.'"
It was anything but fine though. Six months later, she was limping, in excruciating pain, all while working in the Central Texas Medical Center's Intensive Care Unit, full time.
"I just kept telling myself, ‘it's just sore, it's going to get better,' but I remember one day when my daughter asked me to sit down and read her a book," she recalled. "As I went to sit down, ‘Indian style,’ I knew something was wrong."
It was then she went to see Dr. Ivy in San Marcos. There they did preliminary tests and MRI's and upon finding out what kind of injury it was, it was determined she needed a specialist.
"I ended up seeing a physician in San Antonio, Dr. Casey Tabor, he did the surgery," Turnini said. "He told me I had a 50 percent chance to walk normally again."
Following surgery, where she received a couple of donated ligaments and four months of recovery, Turnini is walking normally. The ligaments repaired the labrum and helped stabilize the hip.
Turnini said she didn't know where the donated ligaments came from but was given a letter where she could write, and make comments showing her gratitude for the wonderful gift.
"I thanked them. My quality of life is so much better. When I tell people, I've had hip surgery they can't believe it…they can't even tell," she said.
"Organ donation, tissue donation, blood donation…it's something major. It can help so many people. Even if you don't end up being a candidate for certain things, just to know, a little piece of tissue can change somebody's life as it has mine. It's huge."
Lemuel Bradshaw with United Tissue Resources agrees.
“Tissue donation increases the potential of just one person, who declares their wish to be a donor on the Donate Life Texas Registry, to positively impact the lives of hundreds of recipients. Just think of all the lives that the recipients touch in turn,” Bradshaw said. “Tissue donation may not always be performed to save a life, but it does give back parts of life that recipients may have thought were lost to them forever, due to pain or immobility. It lets them get back to being the people that they truly are.”
Bradshaw said recipients of all kinds know, that the gift that they received doesn’t just benefit them personally, it benefits everyone their lives touch after receiving it.
“Tissue donation can both save and enhance lives. Bone, skin and tendon grafts are used every day, to treat pain that recipients may have suffered with for years. Heart valves save the lives of children and adults alike, who may have been born with heart defects that would otherwise shorten their lives,” he said.
“Often, people are familiar with tissue donation, because they know it is used to treat burns. While that certainly is an extremely important end-result, it is just one of the incredible uses of tissue. From dental procedures to the treatment of wounds to heart valve repair, just one tissue donor might save or enhance the lives of hundreds of recipients.”
Allograft Tissue Donation
What is allograft (transplantable human) tissue donation?
1. The surgical recovery of human tissue, which can later be transplanted to heal or save lives.
2. Over 1 million allograft tissue transplants are performed annually in the U.S.
3. Tissue recovered includes bone, skin, veins, ligaments and tendons, nerves and heart valves.
4. From just one allograft tissue donor, it may be possible to surgically recover over 100 grafts.
5. Recipients of allograft tissue, need no anti-rejection drugs, unlike recipients of whole organs (e.g., heart, lungs, kidneys, etc.). The grafts provide a base on which their bodies own cells can grow. In time, the graft becomes part of the recipient’s body.
6. Once processed, some tissue grafts can be stored for use, for up to 5 years (bone and skin grafts).
7. Tissue donors may come from hospitals, medical examiner’s cases, hospice organizations, or even home deaths, with exceptions based on the time the heart stops, and a thorough review of co-morbidities and factors such as lifestyle, travel history, etc.
8. Allograft tissue donors may come from individuals who have registered their wish to donate, on the Donate Life Texas Registry, or whose next-of-kin has given permission to surgically recover tissue, at the time of their passing.
9. The Donate Life Texas Registry allows all Texans to declare their desire to be organ, eye and tissue donors. It is the same registry that your name is added to, if you say yes at DPS, to the question, “Would you like to register as an organ donor?”
10. Allograft tissue may be used in procedures such as dental procedures, burn treatment and wound repair, orthopedic procedures, heart valve replacement and many more.
11. United Tissue Resources distributed more than 10,000 life-enhancing grafts throughout their service area in 2018 and will distribute more than 11,000 in 2019.
What allograft tissue donation IS NOT.
- Whole or willed-body donation
- “Donating my body to science.”
Allograft Tissue Donation in Hays County
- United Tissue Resources (UTR / est. 1985) provides allograft tissue recovery and distribution services to Hays County residents.
- UTR surgically recovers, stores and distributes tissue grafts, for use in surgery centers and hospitals.
- 69 percent of Hays County residents are registered organ, eye and tissue donors, with the Donate Life Texas Registry.
Allograft Tissue Data for 2018 & 2019 (Hays County):
- Recovered allograft tissue donors - 15
- Grafts distributed - 73
- Donors - 8
- Tissue grafts distributed - 163
United Tissue Resources encourages all residents of Hays County, to consider registering as an organ, eye and tissue donor, on the Donate Life Texas Registry. Over 11 million Texans have already made their wishes known, to be donors.
