Brandy Stockwell (Top) and Stephanie Stockwell

(Editor’s Note: Working on the State Patrol program to facilitate donation has given Det. Steve Stockwell a chance to come full circle in his personal and professional life. Here, he explains his involvement. See related story, “Spearhead of State Patrol program wins honors”.)

As I worked on the POPS project, and as I learned more and more about tissue and organ donation, I began to realize just how important tissue and cornea donation is—important not only to recipients, but also to the loved ones of the deceased.
Early on, I knew that I was sincerely dedicated to this program. It happens that it fit into my life for very specific reasons. My family was not given the opportunity to donate tissues or corneas after my 18-year-old daughter, Brandy, was killed in an automobile collision.

Brandy died near Battle Ground, Washington, on June 8, 1996, when she ran a stop sign and was struck by another vehicle. I never checked to see whether she had designated a desire to become a donor on her driver’s license. But I do know that no one approached us about having her become a donor. I wish someone would have asked. I know we would have wanted her to be able to help someone else through donation.

I also know what it’s like to live with a family member in need of a transplant. My 24 year-old daughter, Stephanie, developed lupus, an autoimmune disease, in 1997, at the age of 17. Stephanie’s kidneys no longer function, and she is on dialysis three times a week, four hours a day. I hope that someday she will be able to live a normal life with a donated kidney.

When I was trying to help the father with that donation two years ago, I wasn’t thinking of my own experience. Yet through the development of the POPS program, I have come full circle in both my professional and personal life. The longer I am involved in POPS, the more I know how important it is to families to be given the opportunity to donate.