Recipient meets organ donor's family in Elgin

Brenda Tetzlaff says she felt healthy for the first time in her life five weeks after undergoing a pancreas and kidney transplant.

Still, Tetzlaff, 40, of Waukesha, Wis., who had suffered from diabetes complications for about 25 years, couldn't shake a feeling of guilt about the death of the young man whose death allowed her to live.

Luis Noriega, 25, of Elgin died April 15 after being attacked the night before by three men outside Reilly's Bar and Eatery in DeKalb. Noriega was a Kishwaukee College student and an assistant soccer coach at Indian Creek High School in Shabbona.

"I spent so much of my life either at home or in a hospital," said Tetzlaff. "I wanted to be part of my kids' lives. I felt guilty reading about Luis' death. Why am I going on when someone's murder allowed me to do so? But he saved my life."

On Dec. 8, Tetzlaff finally got a chance to thank Noriega's family, months after she and his mother, Margarita Noriega, began communicating through letters.

Both began to cry after meeting at the Noriegas' Elgin home.

"Our son gave life," Gilberto Noriega Sr. said. "He helped somebody live."

Recipients and donor families rarely meet because strict privacy laws protect organ recipients and donor families until both consent to have personal information exchanged. But the Tetzlaffs and Noriegas were determined, although addresses and phone numbers were blacked out in their letters.

"It's not as common as we would hope for these people to meet," said Kathy Schultz, senior marketing consultant for the University of Wisconsin-Madison Organ Procurement Organization. "It can take years to cope for the grieving donors' families and the recipients feeling that guilt."

Brenda and her husband, Jason, gave the Noriegas a picture of themselves with their sons, Tyson, 8, and Trae, 6, a T-shirt from the hospital and a poem thanking the family for their sacrifice.

Friends and family described Luis Noriega as generous, kind and funny.

"The guy had a heart of gold, he'd drop anything for anybody," close friend Jeremy Lorang said. "It's been a roller coaster, emotionally. ... When things like this happen, I ask why."

Tetzlaff spent the first five weeks after surgery adapting to anti-rejection medication she will take the rest of her life. Some nights during that time, she said, she wasn't sure if she would ever open her eyes again.

But, "almost overnight, after those first five weeks, I suddenly felt better," Tetzlaff said. "I could walk to the mailbox and eat real foods. At night after the boys are put to bed, I sit on the couch and can't believe I'm here."