February 12, 2021
A 2006 alumna, Shannon (Thomas) Andersen chose to attend Shawnee State after receiving a scholarship to continue her athletic career with the Women’s Basketball team. Racking up over 1,000 points during her four-year career, she stood out on the basketball court as a forward for the Bears. After graduation, Andersen felt the need to stand out in a different way – making an impact on someone’s life.
In the summer of 2018, Andersen began researching the process for donating a kidney to a patient in need. She spent weeks researching information, feeling it was a way she could truly impact someone else’s life with her own. Not long after doing her own research, she joined a leadership class with her employer Hancock Literacy. In a class that focused on developing leadership throughout individuals’ communities, Andersen met Michele who had recently shared on her social media that her father, Roger, was in need of a kidney transplant. Anderson immediately realized why her faith had led her to want to donate a kidney.
That fall, she began the process to donate her kidney to Roger but kept her plans quiet in case she did not end up being a match. After many tests, Andersen learned she was officially approved as Roger’s match. Everything seemed to be falling into place when a month later she was notified by a representative at the transplant hospital that she was a match for someone other than Roger – a patient that had been waiting for multiple years and had two autoimmune diseases making the chance for a match very rare. Through a transplant chain process, the representative assured her she would not only donate her kidney to someone in need, but Roger would be receiving his kidney from someone else as well at the same time. Overall, six donors and six recipients took part in the transplant chain in April 2019.
Andersen’s donation was a success – with the kidney working in her recipient before the patient was even closed up. A few days later, all the participants in the transplant chain were able to meet for the first time.
“It was a very emotional experience,” said Andersen, who was able to meet her recipient Kim for the first time, as well as Michele’s dad Roger, the person who put her on this path in the first place. “A lot of hugs, tears, and happiness were in that room that morning.”
Days after the successful surgery, Andersen returned home and received a phone call from her former SSU coach, Robin Hagen-Smith who had heard about her surgery. Not many individuals had known she was donating a kidney to a stranger, so to hear from her former coach stood out to her.
“I was so moved that she had heard of our story and reached out to me to see how I was doing,” she said. “We have gone many years without talking to each other and have many miles between us, but it still feels like we are family.”
Last year, on the one-year anniversary of the chain transplant, the group was planning to meet up in person to reconnect. Due to COVID-19, the plans were changed to a group Zoom meet-up. All six transplants have been successful, and the recipients are healthy and doing well.
“I am forever grateful that I was picked to be part of this process and experience,” said Andersen, explaining that the process has allowed her to grow personally in her own faith. She continues to keep in contact with Kim as well as Michele’s father Roger. “I would do it all over again if I could. Saving the life of a wife, mother, daughter, and sister was a feeling I will never forget.”
Andersen resides in Carey, Ohio with her husband Andrew and sons Bentley (9) and Lincoln (7) and is the Executive Director of Hancock Literacy.
This alumni feature was originally released in the Shawnee Magazine: Fall 2020 issue. To view the full magazine online, visit shawnee.edu/magazine.