Organ donation a personal cause for Sonoma woman

Before she even reached kindergarten, doctors gave Marcie Waldron what amounted to a death sentence.

She was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, a serious condition that today affects more than a million U.S. children and adults and if left uncontrolled can cause significant damage to vital organs. In the 1950s, when medical care wasn’t as sophisticated, the condition for 3-year-old Waldron resulted in some devastating news for her family.

“Doctors told my parents that if I did everything right, I’d live to be 30,” said Waldron, a 15-year Sonoma resident who will celebrate her 64th birthday this fall.

The trying times as a toddler, however, were only the beginning of a series of health crucibles for Waldron. In the past 17 years, she has undergone transplants for both a new kidney and pancreas because of problems arising from the diabetes. The experience, including the anxiety of waiting for three years on a transplant list and not knowing if she would die, drove Waldron to become a strong advocate for organ donation.

In the Sonoma Valley, she is now spearheading a local campaign that’s focused on getting the word out about the importance of being an organ donor. She’s relentless and persuasive, yet approaches the otherwise grave and difficult topic with spunk and lightheartedness.

She’s made it her mission to boost the number of local residents registered as organ donors, meaning they consent in the event of their death to give their organs to patients in need.

“Twenty people die every day in this country because there aren’t enough donated organs,” she said. “Mostly everyone believes in organ donation but don’t get around to signing up.”

Her campaign is timely. The number of Sonoma County residents on the organ donor list slipped last year from half the population to a little over a third.

The trend is similar in the city of Sonoma, said Waldron, a retired executive assistant who grew up in Orinda and received a bachelor’s degree in recreational therapy and a master’s in art therapy from San Diego State.

Focused and energetic, Waldron is hopeful she can turn around the declining numbers. She’s made appearances at local events and on a radio show, highlighting her 2-month-old “Got the Dot?” campaign, a reference to the pink donor dot printed on driver’s licenses. She’s doling out educational leaflets and donor registration forms - in English and Spanish - and enlisting businesses and organizations like the Boyes Hot Springs-based La Luz Center to reach out to Latinos.

Statewide, there are about 23,000 people in need of a transplant. About 40 percent are Latino, the largest ethnic group on the waiting list. Many of them need kidneys. That’s in part due to diabetes and high blood pressure that disproportionately affects Latinos and other minorities, said Ayanna Anderson, a community development liaison with the California Transplant Donor Network.

The chances for a successful organ transplant are enhanced if the donor is of the same ethnicity. That reason alone thrust Waldron and her cause into the Latino community, despite the language barrier.

Anderson said it’s a difficult discussion to have with people, regardless of ethnicity.

“I had people back away from our information tables, saying ‘I’m just not ready to die,’?” she said.

Those who know Waldron, however, say they have no doubt she’ll succeed in her campaign to enlist both the general population and the Latino community.

“She’s tenacious,” Anderson said.

She’s also an example of the difference an organ transplant can make, said Cynthia Scarborough, executive director of the Vintage House, the Sonoma senior center, where Waldron served for two years as board president.

“She’s alive because of a transplant,” Scarborough said.

Waldron doesn’t shy away from telling her story, especially if doing so means a new name will be added to the donor list.

“It’s one way of giving back, encouraging donations,” Scarborough said. “That’s how she says thank you.”

She described Waldron as a woman with an “infinite variety of interests and infinite passion in making a difference,” one who already has raised much attention and support in Sonoma, a city of 11,000 where Waldron wears numerous hats in town.

She’s served as board president of the WillMar Family Grief & Healing Center. She’s a member of the local Kiwanis Club. She also sits on the board of the Sonoma Community Center board and serves on the committee that puts on the annual “Noche” fundraiser for La Luz.

A spirited personality, known for her humor, wit and a closet full of pink polka dot blouses and scarves and walking canes to match them, she cuts a conspicuous figure in the often slow-paced Wine Country landscape of Sonoma. She uses the canes to compensate for her left leg, which was amputated about five years ago after a fall at an organ donor event. She now uses a prosthesis.

“I think of canes as another accessory,” Waldron said, adding jokingly, “My canes are the most coordinated thing about me.”

A former Petaluma resident, she adopted Sonoma as her hometown 15 years ago when she married longtime Sonoma resident Dave Waldron.

“I was very happy in Petaluma until I fell in love with a man in Sonoma with a beautiful house in the hills,” she said. “Now, there’s no place I’d rather live.”

Waldron recently was crowned the town’s alcaldessa, a ceremonial title bestowed each year upon an individual who has made major contributions to Sonoma. She’s using the role to educate the public about organ donation, a cause that she notes is “near and dear to my heart - and transplant kidney and pancreas.”

As alcaldessa, she first reached out to Sonoma Mayor David Cook. That day, he registered as an organ donor.

“It took me about two minutes online,” said Cook, who said he previously wanted to register but never got around to doing it.

Waldron’s goal is to have three-quarters of the town on the donor list - a point she shared with Patricia Shults, the executive director of the Sonoma Valley Chamber of Commerce, who she recently met with to hash out ideas about how better to reach residents.

She is persistent in her pitch to enlist donors.

“I doesn’t matter how old you are.”

“You don’t have to go to meetings.”

“It’s not fattening.”

“It saves lives.”

A jewelry maker since high school, she has fashioned more than 5,000 silver star pendants to give to the families of organ donors throughout the United States and abroad. The hobby began in an effort to honor her own donor, whose organs saved five lives, she said.

Waldron’s transplant story is colored by the mix of heartbreak and salvation that often underpin such operations.

A teenager saved her.

By her mid-40s, diabetes had taken a toll on her body. She needed a new kidney and pancreas and was hooked up to a dialysis machine 10 hours a day. Although she held on to hope, Waldron said her thoughts were clouded by death.

“I didn’t know if I was going to live or die,” she said. “I did things like think about how I wanted to be remembered, planned my memorial service (and) what I wanted to write on my tombstone.”

After three years on the transplant waiting list, she received her new organs on June 13, 1997. Both came from the same donor - a 16-year-old boy named Christopher who had committed suicide.

Waldron lights a candle every June 13 to honor the young man who gave her life. The first silver star pendant she made went to his family.

“I have friends who have died because they couldn’t get an organ,” Waldron said.

In Sonoma County, more than 300 residents were waiting for transplants as of this past December. It’s a bleak figure that represents a potentially fatal delay for some patients. For Waldron, it’s a stark reality that fuels her mission.

“It’s a very scary wait,” said Anderson, the California Transplant Donor Network official, adding that Waldron is good at connecting those in need of transplants with resources in the community. She motivates individuals with her “can-do” spirit and her personal story, Anderson said.

“There’s nothing like having an organ recipient make the ask,” Anderson said.

Waldron carries business cards - pink and round-shaped with the phrase “GOT THE DOT?” on the front and her phone number, email address and the web address for Donate Life California, the state’s organ and tissue registry.

In a Sonoma coffeeshop on a recent day, she handed out a few cards to strangers sitting behind her. They had inquired about her walking cane, which was covered in pink dots and matched her pink polka-dot blouse and scarf.

“I’m so used to fundraising, but I don’t want any money,” said Waldron, who’s trying to encourage businesses to offer “pink dot” specials to bring more attention to the campaign and encourage people to sign up. She’s enlisted at least one restaurant owner who’s also a transplant recipient, she said.

Waldron’s warm personality makes it easy to approach her with questions about transplants, said Sharon Somogyi, donor stewardship manager at La Luz Center. That attribute alone provides a great boost to her cause.

“When you’re asking people for organ donations, it’s very personal,” she said. “You’re literally asking for them to share a piece of themselves.”

That difficult conversation is one Waldron has become accustomed to over the years.

“It’s intensified my want to give back,” she said about the transplants she received 17 years ago. “I’m so lucky to be here.”

You can reach Staff Writer? Eloísa Ruano González at 521-5458 or eloisa.gonzalez@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @eloisanews.