Valrico Family With 2 Heart Transplants Reflects on National Donate Life Month

On the day her daughter underwent a third biopsy to determine if medications had fought the rejection of her transplanted heart, Valrico's Judy Dye stood steadfast in her family’s mission to convince people to give the gift of life.

“This is National Donate Life month,” Dye said . “And every day of the month on Facebook, on the LifeLink page, a donor or recipient or a family will be talking about what donation has meant to them.”

The Dye family is quick to give testament.

Because of the gift of life, both Tom Dye and his daughter, Stephanie, at ages 50 and 18, respectively, received new leases on life at Tampa General Hospital.

Tom has his heart transplant in December 2004; his daughter received her new heart three years later, in September.

Both father and daughter suffered from cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle, which in Tom Dye’s family claimed also the lives of his father and two sisters. He learned of his second sister's death at the party celebrating his one-year "heart-aversary."

Shortly after, the Dyes had their two children evaluated for potential heart disease. Their son, Daniel, was in the clear; their daughter, not so fortunate.

“Realize that without people agreeing to become donors, to giving that tremendous gift of life, I would not have my husband or my daughter alive with me today,” Judy Dye said.

To learn more about the Dye family and their experiences with, and testament for, organ donation, , or more previous coverage:

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• A Fifth 'Heart-Aversary' for the Dye Family
  
  
• One Familly, Two Heart Transplants: The Dye Family Celebrates Daughter's First 'Heart-Aversary'
  
  
• The Dye Family of Valrico Celebrates Two Heart Transplants in Three Years (And Three Months)
  
  
• Dye Damily Speaks About Organ and Tissue Donation at Brandon Regional Hospital