Long on hope: former National champion Don Long receives a kidney transplant and a new future
Flex, Sept, 2002 by Jim Schmaltz
It's nearly become a cliche in this post-9/11 world: man's inhumanity to man. We try to make sense of the chaos recorded in the morning newspaper, which sometimes reads like the daily diary of a planet deranged. The faith we put in our. fellow man can easily be drained before we finish our first cup of coffee.
In such despairing moments, think of the Long family. Those who regularly follow bodybuilding are familiar with IFBB pro Don Long and the unfortunate events that ensnared him. The 1995 NPC National champion was diagnosed with massive kidney failure in early 2000, and since then he has been forced to endure four-times-a-week dialysis treatments while waiting for a kidney transplant to replace his two damaged organs. His sister and two brothers were willing to donate, but none was a match for Don. That left him facing the real possibility that he would not receive a transplant before dialysis would begin to take its toll on his body. Despite his unending optimism, Don was too far down on the donor list to hold out much hope.
Then, in a dramatic gesture, Don's older sister, Michelle, took a courageous and unprecedented step to save her brother. Michelle, 38, became the first volunteer in a new program that allows family members to donate organs to strangers in order to move their loved ones to the top of the donor list. In a story that received national attention, Michelle gave up one of her kidneys on February 12, 2002, putting Don at the front of the Washington Regional Transplant Consortium's register to receive the next available compatible kidney. It was a remarkably selfless act that received the attention of CNN and other news organizations. Shortly thereafter, on March 23, Don got the call he'd been hoping for.
