Donation of a lifetime

Five years ago, Kevin Lossing lay in St. Louis Children's Hospital too weak to leave, needing a heart transplant to continue living past age 13. This week, Lossing is simply another college freshman worried about the 20-page paper he has due.

He takes medicine twice a day to keep his body from rejecting the heart he received June 20, 1996, from Aaron Drake, an 8-year-old Olathe, Kan., boy whose liver and kidneys also saved lives. Aaron died after an asthma attack.

Now 18, Lossing says he can identify with the title character in the movie "Saving Private Ryan," who hoped to repay the men who saved him by living a good life.

"I feel like I owe part of myself for doing good," Lossing says.

Saturday Lossing will talk about the difference an organ donor made in his life when he speaks at the 15th annual "Celebration of Life" Donor Awareness Walk to be held in downtown Cape Girardeau. The walk will begin at 1:30 p.m. on the parking lot behind the Southeast Missourian and will continue to the pavilion across from Hudson's furniture store.

The walk is the kickoff for National Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Week.

92-day wait

Lossing waited in the hospital 92 days before a heart became available. He has Becker muscular dystrophy, a milder form than Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Muscular dystrophy damaged the heart he was born with, but because of the genetic difference it cannot affect his new one. His blood is tested every three months and he has a checkup every six months to make sure his good health continues.

By all measures, Lossing is living a normal life.

He just saw the funk-rock-rap-metal band 311, his favorite, in St. Louis. He is concentrating on math courses at Southeast, including a tough drafting class, and loves playing his set of drums.

"The doctors say he shouldn't be able to do this," Lossing's smiling mother, Yvonne, says of the drum sessions.

Mid-America Transplant Services is a nonprofit organization that orchestrates the donation of organs and tissue in Southeast Missouri, Southern Illinois and Northeast Arkansas. Last year, 107 vital organ donors in the region provided more than 300 organs for transplant. Vital organs are the heart, liver and kidneys.

More than 1,800 people in the region are currently waiting for a vital organ transplant, says Brian Bush, donor program specialist for Mid-America Transplant Services.

Lossing's classmates, church and many organizations and individuals also helped the Cape Girardeau family when his need for a heart transplant became known. When he was to be flown by helicopter to St. Louis to see specialists, Marble Hill residents Dan and Donna Tucker volunteered to drive their ambulance so both parents could accompany their son.

Lossing's father, Gary, is a real estate salesman. The family includes an older sister, Kristy, and brother, Keith, and a younger sister, Keely, who just got her driver's license.

Though he says he became a Christian a year before the transplant, Lossing says he has become a more spiritual person since the operation.

Two years ago, the Lossing family was invited to Kansas City, Mo., for the dedication of a fountain built by the Gift of Life Foundation, an educational organization started by one of the families whose child received Aaron Drake's liver. While there, the Lossings finally met the Drakes: Melody and Kris, and their children, Tim and Kaylah.

"They have accepted me as part of their family," Kevin says. "It's like we have known each other a long time.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182