A new purpose for Michael Reed

Wantagh student recruits for organ donors

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Michael Reed was a normal 14-year-old: He played the trumpet, enjoyed video games and participated in paintball. It wasn’t until he received blood work results that he realized he had a bad kidney. After being on dialysis for seven months, the Wantagh native was told he needed a kidney transplant—and he needed it quickly.

“I kind of freaked out, to be honest,” he recalled. “It was just a normal day when my mom told me. I couldn’t really process it.”

Reed, 16, said that although a cousin was a perect match, it was his who father ultimately donated a kidney.

The surgery lasted a few hours, but Reed said it seemed like only five minutes. “I had all of these wires attached to me,” he said. “I sort of felt like a science experiment.”

The transplant wasn’t painful, he added, but it prohibited him from playing contact sports.

Two years after his surgery, Reed is fully recovered and plays on the varsity tennis team at MacArthur High School in Levittown. The sophomore is also involved with the school’s band and various volunteer organizations.

“I felt very comfortable at Stony Brook Hospital, so when they asked me to speak … I didn’t mind at all,” he said.

Reed was invited by Stony Brook University Medical Center to talk about the importance of being an organ donor in recognition of National Organ Donor Appreciation Day. In addition, he received the President’s Volunteer Service Award for his community service efforts with the medical center.

“I wanted to feel accomplished in life,” he explained. “And working with the hospital and participating in more speaking engagements makes me feel like I have acquired that goal.”

Reed said he realizes that he was fortunate to have a family member donate a kidney and, to this day, is grateful. Since his recovery, He has served on the medical center’s Youth Advisory Committee, assisting in the planning and organization of an annual prom for patients residing at the hospital. He also volunteers with the medical center’s transportation department, moving beds and materials around the hospital. 

“Michael is a tremendous success story,” MacArthur Principal Joseph Sheehan said. “He is a wonderful young man and comes from such a loving family.”

Reed said he plans on pursuing a career in medicine and studying nephrology, a branch of the medical field that  focuses on kidney diseases. He also wants to keep encouraging people to become  donors.

“What he has overcome is really a tribute to him,” Sheehan said. “How he responded to such adversity is a testament to all the goodness in his heart and the desire to help others who are going through what he has gone through.”

Reed said he is closer to his father more than ever. “I guess my dad and I have a sort of special bond now,” he added. “Right after surgery, we both had a small pain in our side at the same exact time. We looked at each other and just laughed.”

To view Reed’s Stony Brook University Medical Center visit https://youtu.be/P_s9Vhn4hl4.