Tampa To Literally Shine Light On Desperate Need For Organ Donors

TAMPA, FL — At sundown on Friday, the city of Tampa will illuminate Old City Hall, Curtis Hixon Park and all the downtown bridges with blue and green lights.

The gesture isn't simply an attempt to beautify downtown Tampa. It's a tribute to the more than 5,000 Floridians awaiting a lifesaving transplant and a reminder of how easy it is to become a transplant donor.

Tampa Shines Blue and Green is intended to shed light on National Donate Life Month in April and the critical need for donations of organs, eyes and tissue to save the lives of hundreds of Tampa Bay residents. Blue and green are the official colors of Donate Life Florida.

This year, the city of Tampa is joining hands with LifeLink of Florida and Tampa General Hospital to raise awareness of the need for donations and remind residents they can become a registered donor by simply checking a box when filling out the form to obtain or renew their driver's license.

The LifeLink Foundation is a nonprofit community service organization dedicated to
the recovery of life-saving and life-enhancing organs and tissue for transplantation
therapy. The organization works closely with Tampa General Hospital's Transplant Institute, ranked the No. 6 transplant hospital in the country.

In the past two decades, the hospital has performed more than 10,000 heart, lung, liver, kidney and pancreas transplants, making it one of the busiest transplant centers in the United States.

Tampa resident Marissa Arvonio is among the 39,000 grateful people who received a lifesaving organ transplant at the hospital in the midst of last year's coronavirus pandemic.

Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 4, Arvonio struggled for years with complications that led to a childhood marked by frantic 911 calls and late-night emergency room visits.

Just when she thought her health problems couldn't get worse, in 2017 Arvonio developed chronic inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy, an autoimmune disease that attacks nerves in the body. The disease left Arvonio unable to walk. She was forced to give up the career she loved in fashion merchandising.

“I had to stay in the hospital for a month," she said. "I couldn’t do much of anything. My mother came to live with me for a while because I didn’t even have the muscle strength to sit up by myself."

A year later, while on her honeymoon with husband, Scot, doctors called with the news she'd been dreading. Her kidney was failing, and she would die without a transplant.

Instead of beginning an exciting, new life with her husband, the newlywed ended up back in the hospital.

“I got home and went into uremia (a condition involving abnormally high levels of waste products in the blood)," she said. "My body completely shut down. I almost lost my life."

She immediately began dialysis, hooked up to a machine for hours on end multiple times a week for treatment to filter and purify her blood.

Arvonio despaired of ever leading a normal life again. However, after two years on the transplant waiting list, she received the phone call that changed her life.

It's not the gift most people dream of receiving on their 35th birthday, and it's certainly not the way most people would choose to celebrate their birthday.

But Arvonio said she couldn't have asked for a better birthday. She spent the day in surgery receiving a kidney and pancreas transplant.

“I woke up and walked the first day after my transplant with a walker," she said. "It’s hard when you’re sick for so long to know what a good day is. I had never felt like this before in my whole life."

Arvonio said she now greets every day with joy and gratitude. She doesn't take a single minute for granted.

"My CIDP is in remission and I bike 15 miles a day now,” Arvonio said. “I went from being alive to actually living.”

With a functioning kidney, Arvonio no longer needs dialysis and, thanks to her pancreas transplant, she no longer suffers from type 1 diabetes.

Soon after her transplant, Arvonio wrote a letter to the family who donated their loved one's organs and transformed her life.

“I told them how blessed I was and how sorry I was for their loss," she said.

She was especially curious to know if there was something her donor left unfinished, something that she could complete in honor of her donor.

"I promised to pay it forward,” Arvonio said.

Arvonio is now seeking a job that will allow her to make a difference in the lives of others, something her donor hoped to do.

Whenever she can, Arvonio takes the opportunity to tell her story of despair and hope, and how a stranger saved her life, reminding others that all they need to do is simply check a box on their driver's license to transform the life of one of the 107,000 people in the United States awaiting a transplant.

Anyone can be a potential donor, regardless of age or medical history, and possibly save or improve the lives of up to 75 people. To register for the state's organ, eye and tissue donor registry, visit Donate Life Florida.