After receiving the ultimate gift from an organ donor, Lisa Barker and her family are devoted to giving back.
At 25 years old, Lisa Barker found herself arriving at Baylor University Medical Center (BUMC) in Dallas on a helicopter. Lisa’s diagnosis of acute liver failure had her care team estimating that she had 24 to 48 hours left to live—unless she received the lifesaving gift of an organ donation. Lisa refers to what happened next as a complete miracle:
As her family and newlywed husband prayed for Lisa, another family was making the decision to donate the organs of their own 15-year-old daughter, Courtney Ray Sterling, a teenager who had passed away in a car accident along with her older sister and unborn nephew.
“Courtney is my hero. The decision her parents made that day to donate her organs saved my life and the lives of several others,” Lisa said. “Her parents said that Courtney would have wanted something good to come from this. As a mom now myself, I would also want my boys’ legacy to live on in such a unique and beautiful way.”
Lisa’s liver transplant was performed at BSW Annette C. and Harold C. Simmons Transplant Institute, an internationally renowned destination for transplant care and one of the largest in the nation. Since the first transplant in 1984, more than 11,000 patient lives have been transformed, making the program the highest volume transplant center in Texas.
Giuliano Testa, MD, chief of abdominal transplant surgery at BUMC, credits the selfless donors
who empower the excellent work he and his team perform. “Often, the focus of attention goes to the doctors and the institutions that perform these lifesaving procedures. But the true heroes in these stories are the patients, the families and the donors,” Dr. Testa said. “Lisa’s story is the perfect example of how from one act of kindness stem many more. Our job at Baylor Scott & White, every day, is to make the extraordinary ordinary and the exceptional normal—not an easy task, and yet our strength and enthusiasm are constantly fueled by our patients, their families and the donors.”
Lisa and her husband Reid, high school sweethearts and devout Christians, made the decision to dedicate their lives to raising awareness for the gift of life that organ donation represents.
A few years after Lisa received her transplant, Reid found the opportunity to give back in the ultimate way—as a living kidney donor after one of his good friends developed kidney failure.
“I am honored to be a living kidney donor,” Reid said. “Signing up to be an organ donor truly is the most selfless decision anyone can make. Our lives are an example of that gift, and we will continue to spread that hope each day we are given!”
Lisa thinks often of the milestones she is able to achieve in life, thanks to her donor. Lisa makes every moment count, celebrating her marriage and also achieving a life dream to become a mom. Lisa and Reid adopted their boys, Frank and Blaise, from the country of Burundi; they have also added Michael and Dawn Sterling, Courtney’s parents, to their own family. Lisa’s boys know the couple as “MawMaw and PawPaw.”
The Barkers’ transplant story today comes full circle, as Lisa and Reid passionately advocate and pray for others in need of transplant. Among those is Lisa’s father, Steve, who is now on the kidney transplant waiting list. Lisa is grateful for the excellent care she says her father is receiving at Baylor Scott & White and hopes to stand at his side as he undergoes the transplantation process himself, if a donor is found. “I call it my ‘Baylor bubble,’ because the people there not only care for you physically, but also emotionally,” Lisa said. “You feel the love.”
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