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Team USA Members Meet Their Match...


[click to enlarge]

 

Bob is the luckiest,
since he
carries a
piece of her
everywhere.
He got her
kidney about
five years ago.

 

 

His life insurer predicted his
demise at
age 53 --
the year
he received
Pam's kidney.

 

[click to enlarge]

 

She could send a letter to the local organ procurement office, but a reply was far from guaranteed.

 

 

 

 

'I couldn't walk from here to where I left my skis,' which were dripping with water in the mid-morning sun, about seven feet away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Story by Randy H. Milgrom
Audio by Matthew Quirk
Photography by Bob Garypie and Peter Ottlakan

On the Slopes:

One must be a serious and experienced skier to even think about trying to manage gravity's pull down the steep, shadowed piece of mountainside that constitutes the Super-G slalom course at the 2001 Winter World Transplant Games in Nendaz, Switzerland. And Susan Reiss and Tom Hobday, Team USA teammates from Sacramento, California, easily qualify on both counts.

Susan, 42, skies regularly in and around Lake Tahoe, Mammoth Mountain, and other Northern California resorts, and this is her fourth Winter Transplant Games following stints in Aspen, Mammoth, and Snowbird. Tom, 58, taught skiing on weekends for more than 20 years, and arrived in Nendaz poised to ski in at least four different events following his Transplant Games initiation at Snowbird two years ago. Competing this morning in the Super Veteran category, Tom placed a healthy fifth (following an impressive fourth place finish in yesterday morning's Super Slalom race) in 1 min., 24 sec. -- just eight seconds off the gold medalist's pace.

Hobday was casually mentioning that the track was slower than he expected (as if it were possible to move at anything other than an excessive rate of speed down this slope) when his friend and fellow competitor, Swiss Team member Marc Vollenweider -- a Mr. Clean look-alike, right down to the earring (though Mr. Vollenweider sports many more than one) -- bounded over in his ski boots asking about the morning's results. Tom was able to give him the news that delighted them both: Mr. V placed second!

As a Northern Californian, Susan has spent a good portion of her lifetime on skis, and she says coming to Nendaz fulfills a 'dream of a lifetime' to finally ski in Europe. She's been having fun, as she always does at the Transplant Games -- 'meeting other transplant recipients, and knowing that we share something, is just so wonderful' -- but she was not as certain about this morning's competition.

'Very stiff competition,' Susan says, smiling and shaking her head. 'And a tough slalom course.' She thinks she'll decide about entering other races on a day-to-day basis. 'Besides,' she adds, 'this place is so beautiful. I want to have time to explore.'

In Marriage:

Tom Hobday's wife, Pam, is with him in Nendaz. She roams the slopes exuberantly -- waving, shouting, and even hugging and kissing many of those fortunate enough to cross her path. Bob, of course, is the luckiest, since he carries a piece of her everywhere. He got her kidney about five years ago.

'When I found out we were a match, I was thrilled!' Susan says. They were living together at the time, but they weren't married because their accountants had advised for financial reasons that their union not be formalized.

'But after sharing body parts...' Susan laughed, and shrugged, suggesting there would be nothing to stand in their way.

Tom had originally been diagnosed with a kidney ailment immediately following his tour of active duty in Vietnam. A life insurance policy purchased soon afterward required premium payments based on his predicted demise at age 53 -- the year he received Pam's kidney. Though Tom had always lived an active life, a certain periodic caution and watchfulness was required; in the last five years he's been cruising as never before.

'We called my kidney 'little pearl,'' Susan says about the little ways she and her husband conspired to lighten up heavy times. 'When I first saw him out on the slopes after the transplant, I said, 'Little Pearl's having a lot more fun in his body than she ever had in mine!''

As Extended Family:

Susan Reiss received her new heart on December 23, 1989, just before Christmas, and she recites the date the way many organ recipients tend to: as a time that will never be forgotten. Susan was in the peak of health, at age 31, when a bacterial infection suddenly struck her. Within a month she had slowed to a crawl. 'In three months time, I couldn't walk from here to where I left my skis,' she says as she points to them, dripping with water in the mid-morning sun, about seven feet away.

Susan had waited, very sick, for 17 very long days, until she received a donor heart. She had no idea who the donor was, and for a long while had only a vague idea that she might want to know.

Until the Winter Transplant Games at Snowbird.

'Suddenly, I had it in my mind that I wanted to win a medal at the Games and award it to a member of my donor's family,' Susan says. 'I wanted to be able to give them something.'

But she had no ready means of accomplishing that. She could send a letter to the local organ procurement office, but a reply was far from guaranteed.

Just one month before the Games, however, the procurement office sent a letter to her. It was from her donor's mother.

She lived just 40 miles away in the Sacramento area, and Susan had an emotional meeting with her before leaving for Snowbird. Upon her return, she delivered to her one of the two gold medals she won there. The picture taken during their first-ever meeting sits on the mantel of the donor's mother's home -- and the medal Susan won at Snowbird hangs over the frame. Susan continues to call every three months or so, and visits every Christmas.

Though both women had considered, from time to time, that they might like to meet, it took them both ten years to act. The mother's letter had referred to a moment of 'spiritual reflection' that set her in motion.

Precisely the moment, perhaps, when Susan decided it was time to meet her match, too.