The Ultimate Gift: NJ Sharing Network

An unexpected trauma has occurred. The medical team has done its best for the patient, but all hope is lost. With recovery ruled out, organ donation becomes a possibility. That's when the Sharing Network steps in.

Sharing Network staffers like Oscar Colon and Paula Gutierrez work on organ donation cases for up to 36 hours.
Sharing Network staffers like Oscar Colon and Paula Gutierrez work on organ donation cases for up to 36 hours.
Photo by Allison Michael Orenstein

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Michele Dabal gave up her career to volunteer full-time for the Sharing Network. A mother of two, Dabal opened the Waterdog Cafe in Mendham in 2005. Soon, she began feeling inexplicably exhausted. Her doctor suggested she take some time off.

Dabal was having some blood tests one Monday afternoon when doctors at Overlook Medical Center in Summit decided to admit her. Five days later, she was transferred to University Hospital in Newark; it’s the last thing she remembers. She eventually woke up with her head shaved, 52 stitches in her stomach and a breathing tube down her throat.

Michelle Dabal received an unexpected liver transplant in 2005. Today, she volunteers full-time for the Sharing Network and competes in the biennial Donate Life Transplant Games.

Michelle Dabal received an unexpected liver transplant in 2005. Today, she volunteers full-time for the Sharing Network and competes in the biennial Donate Life Transplant Games. Photo by Allison Michael Orenstein

“My husband was sitting at my bedside looking like somebody died and I immediately thought, Oh God, something’s happened to our kids,” Dabal says. “Then there was a doctor I had never met before and he said, ‘Michele, you had a liver transplant.’ That’s what he was saying, but I couldn’t piece it together, I didn’t get it.”

Dabal learned she had contracted Still’s disease, a rare form of arthritis, while traveling in Africa five years earlier. Doctors believe she had come into contact with a virus after falling into murky water, making her more susceptible to the rare inflammatory disease. The disease attacked her liver for five years, ultimately causing acute liver failure.

The liver failure was sudden. After doctors put Dabal in an induced coma, she had exactly 24 hours to receive a transplant or die. The doctors said she had a 50-percent chance of receiving a transplant and surviving. In the 22nd hour, her family received the news that a liver had become available.

Dabal, now 53, made a full recovery and today feels “better and stronger than ever.” Once her health was restored, she joined Team Liberty, a group of athletes from the tristate area who have been touched by organ and tissue donation. The team, sponsored by the Sharing Network, participates in the Donate Life Transplant Games for living donors and recipients. Dabal also trained as a Sharing Network volunteer. She is a member of the foundation board and regularly speaks about donation in hospitals, schools, religious venues and at local events.

“I’m just blown away by everything the Sharing Network does and how well they do it,” Dabal says. “I can’t say enough good things about how they’re run—how professional they are, how sensitive they are…. There isn’t a person in that building that doesn’t have a heart and soul in this mission.”

The Sharing Network has about 150 staff members and 400 active volunteers. Part of their mission is maintaining strong ties with recipients and donor families. Every fall, donor families from the last two years are invited to a memorial service to honor loved ones lost. The Family Support Department keeps donor families updated on tissue recipients, and every anniversary of their loved one’s death, families receive a check-up call from the Sharing Network. The department also assists donor families in writing letters to the recipients of their loved one’s organs and facilitates meet-ups if both parties agree.

The organization’s Celebration of Life 5K walk/run is meant to honor and remember donors—and to celebrate their gift of life. Family members can participate in the run, read donor stories, view quilts created by donor families and connect with one another.

“We all have a common denominator, and the Sharing Network is like a home, a shelter, especially for donor families,” Ali says. “And they want to know what we’re doing. Social workers here follow-up with donor families, and they really care about the gift that you give—you don’t become a number, you become part of a huge network of love.”

Staff members with the Sharing Network also feel their lives are forever changed by the work they do—and by the bonds that they make with families.

“After all of the years, I still cry with families, I laugh with them, I bond with them to the point where I do feel their pain,” Colón says. “But what keeps me going is knowing that what this family is doing is going to save another human being’s life. Being able to, in the weeks, months or years later, see these families and have them remember you and thank you—to me, it’s very rewarding.”

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