by Jamie Chase Galvin
Sterling resident Karen Mayotte is a hero to one Tewksbury family for an act of complete generosity—donating a kidney to a stranger in need. Mayotte, a second grade teacher at Center School in Stow, credits the death of a student at her school as the driving force behind her journey to organ donation.
“If you had asked me over a year ago, I would have never imagined that I would even be thinking about donating a kidney,” she says. “I’ve always given blood every six months, as well as platelets. I registered as an organ donor as well, but it never occurred to me that being a living donor was in my near future.”
It was the death of Ari Schultz, a preschool student at the Center School in the spring of 2017 and a Facebook post that prompted Mayotte to consider organ donation as a way to honor Schultz’s legacy. “Last spring, a preschool student in my school, Ari Schultz, was finally able to receive a heart. That was such a beautiful moment for our Center School community as Ari had been sick his entire life. He was born with a serious heart condition. Unfortunately, he passed away on July 21, 2017.”
The opportunity to honor Schultz came when Mayotte saw a posting on Facebook from a friend of a friend who was looking for someone to donate a kidney for her husband Michael. “On July 9, Jenn [Michael’s wife], wrote this beautiful Facebook post asking if anyone would consider giving a kidney to her husband. She shared about how he is such a great father, how he never complains about his medical struggles, and how he has been on dialysis for two years, and praying to find a living kidney donor. I remember private messaging Jenn the sad news of Ari’s passing and that I was devastated. I told her that I wanted to go ahead with the living donor process, and that I’d be the happiest person in the world if I was a match.”
Mayotte underwent the rigorous process to determine if organ donation was possible and if she would be a match for Michael, including extensive blood work, an MRI, and hours spent at Brigham and Women’s Hospital to meet with surgeons, social workers, and counselors. An abnormal EKG meant a bump in the road, but ended up being fine as more tests were run with Mayotte passing each hurdle. The last big hurdle in the process was determining tissue compatibility with Michael.
On April 12, Mayotte and Michael underwent complex but successful surgeries with the outcome the best case scenario possible. Throughout the process Mayotte and her family have bonded with Michael and his family over their shared journey.
Mayotte is still on the road to recovery, but couldn’t be happier with the result for herself and for Michael. “I can’t wait till I finish up recovery so I can get back up on my feet and go visit him again in Tewksbury,” she says. She’s looking forward to being an advocate for living kidney donors. “At fi rst it sounds like a very scary decision,” she says. “But now that I know the process, I can’t wait to support other people who may choose to do this type of donation.”