[CBFF] Family of Walter Payton works to increase organ donor awareness

[Jason Cetina]

*Friday, February 22, 2008
* Family of Walter Payton works to increase organ donor awareness
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By Wayne Drehs
ESPN.com

	Walter Payton
*Walter Payton, a nine-time Pro Bowl player and Hall of Famer, played 
for the Chicago Bears from 1975-1987. On Nov. 1, 1999, at the age of 45, 
he died after battling a rare liver disease.*

CHICAGO -- It has been nearly nine years since that emotionally 
draining, tear-filled fall night. But Brittney Payton remembers it like 
it was yesterday. Her father had gathered her and her big brother 
Jarrett in the family's basement, explaining he had something to tell 
them. It wasn't good.

A group of doctors, Dad explained, had diagnosed him with primary 
sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), a rare liver disease that meant he would 
need a liver transplant. In between the emotional breakdowns, Brittney 
remembers, her dad tried to convince his children that everything would 
be fine. He was on a waiting list for a transplant, a liver was soon 
going to become available and then he would have surgery. He would be 
back to Walter Payton, back to being their dad, in no time.

For Brittney, who was just 13 years old at the time, the conversation 
was terrifying.

"My dad had always been such a strong and healthy man," she said. "He 
had always been our rock. And to see him all emotional, too see him 
crying . . . it was tough. But he tried to be strong. He tried to assure 
us that it would all be OK. As long as he got the transplant, it would 
all be OK."

But the transplant never happened. While waiting for a new liver, Payton 
contracted bile duct cancer, a rare side effect of PSC, which made him 
ineligible for a transplant. Doctors fought the cancer with chemotherapy 
and radiation treatment, but in November 1999, almost a year after 
Payton and his family had that tear-filled conversation in the basement, 
he was gone. Now, almost a decade later, his legacy continues to live 
on. Payton knew very little about organ donation before his ordeal, but 
in the final months before his death, he became an advocate for donor 
awareness. Even after he found out he was no longer eligible for a 
transplant, he spoke publicly about the topic, filming television 
commercials that encouraged people to become donors.

"When I first heard that I would die if they couldn't get me a liver 
within two years, I thought no problem," Payton wrote in his 
autobiography, "Never Die Easy." "What are the odds that won't happen? 
But then I found out the odds might not be so good. And it doesn't make 
any sense. If everyone agreed to organ donation, there wouldn't be any 
list at all." In the wake of her father's death, Brittney has picked up 
where Sweetness left off. In 2001, while she was still a high school 
student, Brittney started Youth for Life, a campaign aimed at increasing 
donor awareness among teenagers. The results have been staggering. 
Coupled with an Illinois donor license plate campaign that features a 
miniature football with the number 34 on it, Youth for Life has helped 
transform Illinois into one of the nation's leading donor states. The 
year before Payton died, Brittney said, the state ranked 47th in the 
number of donors per capita. But every year since her father's death, 
she said, the state has ranked among the nation's best. "It's been 
amazing," Britney said. "Truly remarkable." Although Brittney's work 
primarily targets high school students who are about to receive their 
first driver's license, it indirectly helps raise organ donor awareness 
among minorities, given her father's high-profile status in the 
African-American community. More African-American donors are needed. 
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, an 
increase in the number of minority organ donors would increase the 
frequency of minority transplants because certain blood types are more 
prevalent in ethnic minority populations. Minorities have a particularly 
high need for organ transplants because some diseases of the kidney, 
heart, lung, pancreas and liver are found more frequently in racial and 
ethnic populations. For example, African-Americans are three times more 
likely than whites to suffer from end-stage kidney disease.

But, despite this need, a 2001 study by Case Western Reserve University 
found that a lower percentage of African-Americans signed their donor 
cards or were willing to donate the organs of a loved one than whites 
did. Having the story of a celebrity like Payton or professional 
basketball player Alonzo Mourning, a transplant kidney recipient, or 
Sean Elliott, who received a kidney from his brother, can only help.
	Brittney Payton
*Walter Payton's daughter, Brittney, has become an advocate for organ 
donor awareness. Brittney, seen with her mother, Connie, at Walter 
Payton's funeral, organized a campaign to increased donor awareness 
among teenagers.*

"Me being a minority, that can only help others feel comfortable and 
confident about organ donation," Brittney said. "But this is a huge 
thing for everyone. The more organ donors, the better."

Before Payton became ill, the family knew nothing about organ donation. 
Brittney had never heard of it. But in the months that followed his 
diagnosis, as her father's name was added and then later removed from 
the waiting list, she picked up on her father's message that there's no 
excuse not to be a donor.

These days, when she drives the streets of suburban Chicago and sees 
cars with the orange and blue Illinois donor license plate bearing her 
father's jersey number, she can't help but smile.

"My dad would be so amazed and so proud of my brother and I and my mom," 
Brittney said. "While he was here he did as much as he physically could 
to spread awareness. Even in death, he was out there to help others. He 
passed that on to us. And all we want to do is continue to live his 
dream and keep his legacy out there. That's what keeps us going every 
day. And it's been amazing."

/Wayne Drehs is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at 
wayne.drehs at espn3.com./

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