Delaney: a gift of life

Delaney Corbitt

SPRING 2002 - Michael Corbitt says his daughter's kindergarten classmates once asked her why she drinks so much water. "Don't you know I have a kidney?" Delaney Corbitt answered, lifting her shirt to show off her transplant scar.

"She thinks she's the only one with a kidney," Michael laughs.

When Delaney was born -- two months premature -- a clot had ruined one kidney and destroyed all but 15 percent of the other.

By age two-and-a-half, Delaney needed a transplant. The Corbitts brought her to Packard after checking out pediatric kidney transplant programs across the country. According to Oscar Salvatierra, the case was extremely complex.

The clots in Delaney's kidneys had also destroyed the vena cava, the large vein that carries blood from the kidneys. In a typical transplant, the vena cava must be hooked up to the new kidney.In Delaney's case, Salvatierra would have to patch together several other veins instead. And because Delaney's toddler-sized veins could not carry enough blood to support an adultsized organ, she would need a child cadaver's organ.

In August of 1997, Delaney received her kidney from a 7-year-old girl who died in a bicycle accident. The operation took seven hours.

The Corbitts have become active in the California Coalition on Organ and Tissue Donation. "We were fortunate enough to get to know the donor's family," says Michael. "They took a piece of their child and gave it to someone else. Words will never be enough to thank them."