Local News

Not once, but twice

FD native is double organ donor

April Wilson has given away a piece of her liver and one of her kidneys.

She says she’d do it again if she could.

In October 2019, Wilson donated a lobe of her liver to save her mother, Mary Lou Walker, of Fort Dodge, who had been diagnosed with non-alcoholic cirrhosis.

Five years later, she gave a kidney to a stranger in Wisconsin she had never met.

Today, at 48, Wilson counts herself among an estimated 300 people nationwide who have made two living organ donations, according to Walker, and has turned the experience into a second calling: raising donor awareness.

She has competed in the Transplant Games of America and rode on the Donate Life float in last year’s Rose Parade after being nominated for the honor.

“I’m so grateful to have my mom still here -- and Lindsey,” Wilson said, referring to her kidney

recipient. “The (donor) community is so amazing, and these people have become like family to

me.”

A Christmas Eve emergency

Walker’s health crisis began on Christmas Eve 2018, when she was rushed to the hospital and

diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. Doctors placed her on the waiting list for a deceased donor,

but warned the family she likely wouldn’t survive the wait.

Wilson and her sister both volunteered to be tested as living donors, but Mayo Clinic could

evaluate only one candidate at a time. Wilson’s sister went first; her liver ultimately wasn’t a fit.

Wilson, a smoker at the time, had to quit before Mayo would even consider her -- the clinic

required 30 nicotine-free days before testing could begin. She quit in March 2019, a decision

she credits to her faith.

“I had found my way back to my faith in 2018, and the only way I was able to quit was through

prayer,” Wilson said.

She has now been smoke-free for seven and a half years.

Mayo called her in June 2019 for an initial CT scan, which showed she could be a match. What

followed was roughly 14 additional tests -- cardiology screening, mental health evaluations and

extensive bloodwork -- designed to make sure the donation wouldn’t compromise her own

health. Her cardiology results cleared her on Aug. 21, 2019. Two months later, to the date, she

donated a lobe of her liver to her mother.

“I knew when they told us she would need a living donor – I just knew it would be me,” Wilson

said.

The donated lobe began regenerating almost immediately; a liver typically regrows to full size

and function within about a year. Wilson said her recovery was easier than she expected --

she’d braced herself after reading accounts from a Facebook support group for living liver

donors -- though an adverse reaction to pain medication kept her hospitalized for six days.

Self-employed and able to work from home, she said she needed no lasting lifestyle changes:

she still eats and drinks as she did before.

“I think I’m a bit more self-conscious because my mom’s cirrhosis was sort of a wake-up call,”

she said.

Walker said the moment is still hard for her to put into words.

“I can’t explain sometimes how I felt when I found out she was a match,” Walker said. “The first

time I carried her for nine months, and now I get to carry a piece of her for the rest of my life.”

A second gift, to a stranger

Wilson’s second donation traces back to the support of other donor members she had met. After

joining Team Iowa, a group that competes in Olympic-style events for transplant recipients and

donors, she learned that living kidney donors who ever need a transplant themselves are moved toward the front of the waiting list through a program known as Donor Shield.

Motivated partly by the thought of protecting her mother or another family member should they

ever need a kidney, Wilson contacted Mayo Clinic’s transplant center directly and went through

testing a second time. She was entered into the National Kidney Registry, which matched her

with a recipient also being treated at Mayo: Lindsey, a Wisconsin woman who was deaf, losing

her eyesight and on dialysis.

Wilson donated her kidney to Lindsey in November 2024. Lindsey’s parents reached out to

Wilson while she was still recovering in the hospital and asked to meet her; the two families

have connected ever since.

“When I learned her story, it was a relief to know my kidney went to someone who had already

been through so much,” Wilson said.

"You rely on God to take care of her, because she's doing a charitable thing," Walker says of

watching her daughter donate a second time.

From patient to advocate

Since her donations, Wilson has become an advocate for living organ donation. This year she

competed for Team Iowa at the Transplant Games of America in Denver -- an event that draws

roughly 10,000 people and rotates cities every two years. In her first appearance, Wilson won

13 medals across track and field, bowling and Texas Hold’em.