“I don’t know if he asked me in jest or if he was serious, but he said, ‘If I needed a transplant, would you donate to me?’ I didn’t even think twice, and I said ‘Sure, Dad,’” Donerik said.

In 2006, that casual agreement became a reality when Donerik donated a kidney to his father, gifting him with 14 additional years of life. “I was blessed to have him around as a business partner, a father and a hero,” Donerik said.

Living donation started Donerik on a path of regular checkups. Before that, he could not remember the last time he went to the doctor. About three years after his donation and during one of his regular checkups, it was discovered that one of Donerik’s heart valves was leaking, and by the next appointment, it migrated to “full on mitral valve regurgitation,” making breathing extremely difficult.

“They had to pump so much fluid out of my lungs. My doctor said it was a good thing I didn’t fall asleep because I could have suffocated,” Donerik said.

Donerik had a mitral valve ablation, which was supposed to be an outpatient procedure. During surgery, Donerik coded, and doctors performed CPR for 45 minutes and shocked his heart 70 times. Afterward, Donerik’s already declining health took a cliff dive.

“I was invited to speak at Wright State University, and I was lost, so I asked someone where the building was. She told me to follow her, and she was walking at a normal pace, but I couldn’t keep up. She was probably thinking, ‘I wish this old man would hurry up!’” Donerik said. “I had to stand outside the classroom for four or five minutes because I didn’t want to walk in there panting.”

Soon, walking was not an option, and Donerik was constantly exhausted. Seemingly simple tasks like bending over to tie his shoes or putting air in his tires made him feel like he was going to pass out. Fluid retention in his feet and ankles caused him to cut the bottoms of every pair of dress pants and go up a shoe size to accommodate the swelling. And his fingers became too swollen to wear his wedding ring.

Donerik was suffering from cardiomyopathy and congestive heart failure, and he was in desperate need of a heart transplant. He was put on the national transplant waiting list in October 2014.

Donerik was the President & CEO of Unified Health Solutions, a non-profit organization that provided healthcare, education and workforce development for those in need. One morning, Donerik got in his car to head to work, but the battery was dead.

Donerik “moved in” to the Cleveland Clinic intensive care unit on January 5, 2015 because he was too sick to wait at home, and his prognosis was very poor.

“You think you’re invincible sometimes and you’ve got life figured out and you’re busy and doing your thing, but when they tell you that you might not live, that becomes your priority,” Donerik said.

Donerik’s declining health forced him to resign from his job and withdraw from graduate school, but Donerik’s family and friends helped boost his spirits.

“My friends would drive the four hours to the Cleveland Clinic just to hang out. They would show up all day just about every day,” Donerik said. “And two people from the mail room came to visit me because they said they wanted to see who this person was that was getting all the mail. My walls were covered in cards.”

An infection led to even more complications, and doctors decided the best chance to buy Donerik some time was a total artificial heart. That surgery was set for Monday, March 1, 2015. A few days before, Donerik was on the phone with his wife, Angie, when several nurses gathered around his bed and said they wanted to wish him a happy birthday, which was two days away. Then, one of his doctors came in and said they had a surprise for him.

“If you’re on a cardiac diet, you know the food sucks, so I would beg for macaroni and cheese or anything with some taste to it. So I really thought my doctor was going to produce a nice, hot bowl of macaroni and cheese for my birthday,” Donerik said.

It was not macaroni and cheese. It was a heart.

Angie pulled over and tried to compose herself. Donerik’s room was filled with hugs and joy tears.

“I remember sitting there like, ‘Oh, this is really happening! If I make it, I’m going to have a great story to tell,’” Donerik said.

After almost five months on the waiting list and years of heart health issues, Donerik received a life-saving heart transplant on February 26, 2015 – the day before his 45th birthday.

A month later, Donerik returned home, and he flipped through one of his medical record binders.

“After I coded, the doctor’s note said, ‘Unfortunately, this patient is unsalvageable.’ Reading that, I remember smirking and saying to myself, ‘I’m still here, and I’m going to be awesome,’” Donerik said. “It’s because of Life Connection of Ohio that I was salvageable.”

More than salvageable, Donerik is incredibly active. He resumed graduate school and returned to work. He enjoys BMX racing and working out. He loves cheering on The Ohio State Buckeyes, and he appreciates being able to “walk around the huge stadium and climb stairs for days.”

“I think of the man who donated his heart to me daily. I think about him most when I am doing something that I thought I would never be able to do again. If it wasn’t for that man’s selfless decision to be a donor, I wouldn’t be here today,” Donerik said. “Every day that I wake up, it’s a win, and being able to enjoy life is amazing.”

Donerik’s transplant has given him the opportunity to spend more time with his family, including Angie and his daughter, Taylor.

“My biggest wish was that I would get the opportunity to see Taylor graduate from high school. When you’re lying in a bed not knowing if you’re going to live or die, you think about things like that. But I got out of the hospital at the end of March and was able to watch her graduate in May,” Donerik said. “Had it not been for this life-saving donation, I would have missed out on so much. I’m so blessed.”

Being alive to witness those milestones fuels Donerik’s passion for spreading the word about organ, eye and tissue donation through volunteering for Life Connection of Ohio.

“I need to be an ambassador for organ donation, especially when I look at the numbers and see that African Americans are disproportionately affected. I have a responsibility to engage, educate and inform people, and give them a call to action,” Donerik said.

Every day, Donerik is grateful to his donor hero and his donor family, who entrusted him with the most precious gift.

“If I had the chance to meet my donor’s wife or children, I would say that I am going to take care of this heart and do everything I can do to honor the legacy that is your husband and your father,” Donerik said. “From the bottom of my brand-new heart, thank you, thank you, a million times thank you.”