A Kalispell woman who donated her kidney to her father will be featured in the Rose Parade today to bring attention to the importance of organ donations.

Kjersti Cote, 39, is one of a dozen kidney donors who will walk alongside the Donate Life float in the time-honored parade in Pasadena, California, that precedes the Rose Bowl football game.

Bozeman-based Bacterin International, a tissue bank and medical device company, is sponsoring Cote’s participation in the parade.

Bacterin has been dedicated to sponsoring multiple facets of the Donate Life Rose Parade float since 2010, according to Kathy Simkins, a donor partner liaison for Bacterin.

“This is one of the world’s most visible campaigns to promote organ, eye and tissue donation,” Simkins said.

Cote’s story goes back to August 1998 when her father John was bitten by a venomous brown recluse spider. As the poison spread throughout his body, doctors battled myriad health challenges.

“After spending several weeks in the hospital, they were able to stabilize my dad and save him from amputation of the foot,” Cote recalled in a narrative provided by Bacterin. “The end result was diabetes and other lingering health challenges, one being renal failure.”

By August 2004, her father was so sick he either needed to start dialysis or receive a new kidney.

“I knew deep in my heart that I was his donor and that this was just one mission that I was to fulfill on earth,” she said.

Cote’s father began testing that would qualify him for the National Kidney Recipient List in 2005. She quickly called the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, and asked what she needed to do to be a donor.

After a battery of tests, doctors found her to be a perfect match.

“I was ecstatic. My dad was so sick at this point due to holding off on dialysis, hoping for that match and donation,” she recalled. “I chose the surgery date of February 1. This gave me enough time to fly back home, snuggle my babies and be back for the surgery.”

The surgery went perfectly, she said.

The poignant twist to Cote’s story is that she grew up not knowing her father. She was 24 when she first met him.

“Not only had I known my dad for a brief five and a half years, I was the only match within the family that could donate,” Cote said. “I was 29 years old when my dad received my kidney. So he is claiming he’s 29 years old for life!

“Parents give life to their children, and to be able to reciprocate life back and help him enjoy life longer has been the most humbling and rewarding experience,” Cote said. “I’m healthy as can be and so is Dad. It gave him a new lease on life, allowing him to continue his work in nutraceutical sciences, bringing forth health supplements that are making their own impact in people’s lives and health.”

In addition to Cote and 11 other kidney donors who will walk the 5-mile parade route with the Donate Life float, the float will carry 72 “floragraph” portraits of deceased donors, along with 30 riders representing transplant recipients. The float also will also be adorned with thousands of messages of hope and remembrance attached to roses decorating the float.

Each year, about one-third of the nearly 17,000 kidney transplants nationwide involve living donors, according to Donate Life float organizers.

Recipients typically are family members or close friends of the donors, but increasingly altruistic donors step forward to donate to strangers, with the potential to start a chain of kidney transplants that can potentially free dozens of kidney patients from dialysis.

Because the conditions allowing deceased donation to occur are extremely rare, increasing living donation is essential to helping the nearly 100,000 individuals currently awaiting kidney transplants, Donate Life noted.

Online:

http://donatelife.net

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.