Thankful for the gift of life

RATHDRUM — Tina Hull wants to issue an "unconditional thank you" for the gift of life to the family of the person who donated her a kidney and pancreas.

"I will be at a year and six months (since the transplant) on Jan. 15, and I don't have a single complication," the Rathdrum 35-year-old said.

"The organ donations are not being mistreated, I'm completely healthy and I'm doing what I love."

Hull said the transplant, for which she waited six years, has allowed her to continue to pursue her dreams in the nursing field and help others.

It's also given her a second chance to watch her daughter and two stepchildren graduate from high school, which she'll never take for granted now.

"Before my transplant, I was given five years left to live," Hull said. "Physically, I could go to work, but I couldn't work or stand long because I'd have attacks. I was going to fight as long as I could.

"The donations saved my life and allowed me to raise my kids in a way that I wasn't raised."

Hull has a 9-year-old daughter named Sky and stepchildren Taylor, 16, and Steele, 15.

Hull said staff at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle where the transplant was performed told her that the donor was a male between 16 and 24 who lived in the Coeur d'Alene/Spokane area. The organs came from a patient who was at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane.

"Because it was a dual transplant, they came from the same newly deceased person," she said.

Hull, who’s had Type 1 Diabetes since she was 5, said she was abused as a young child and given up for adoption at age 2.

"I've been brittle most of my life," said Hull, who graduated from Post Falls High School in 1999. "I went through a number of doctors who did not seem to know what to do. The abuse and diabetes started to take my organs. I was physically and mentally hurt."

Hull works as a CNA (certified nursing assistant) at Hayden Country Guest Home assisted living facility and is working on her administrator's license.

"I work in the nursing field to give back," she said. "I enjoy taking care of others who need it."

She and her husband Brad have been married for nearly 10 years.

"I want to be the mom that I didn't have," she said.

As much as Hull would like to thank the organ donor's family in person for the donations but can't because they wish to remain anonymous, she understands their position.

"They lost an individual that they'll never get back," she said. "I appreciate everything they gave up and I want them to know that it's not being wasted."

Hull said she also owes a lot of gratitude to her family; Liberty Dialysis; the Swedish transplant team; her brother Kirk; foster father Curtis Benham; friends and life coaches Dawn, Rhea and Marion Hayden; and Lloyd's Fabric for a family blanket.

Before her transplant, Hull couldn't wear a wedding band, so the necklace served as the wedding band instead. On the necklace are rings that the late Wayne Mooney bought for his wife Dorothy. Hull looked up to the couple as parental influences. Curtis Benham and Wayne Mooney walked Hull down the aisle during her wedding, and Hull helps take care of Dorothy.

It's such people, Hull said, who have helped turn her life around.

Hull said the transplant not only saved her life, but it has given her hope and a different outlook.

"From the way that I was raised, I could've given up a long time ago," she said. "But this has made me realize that there's always somebody worse than I am."