First, I know many Bert Show listeners were following my progress when it came to my Track & Field training for the 2008 Transplant Games.  One of the reasons I make the pilgrimage to the Transplant Games every two years is to remind me of how far I've come since my kidney transplant in 2002.

But it's about more than my physical transformation from that hospital bed at Piedmont Hospital here in Atlanta to the track at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.  It's the emotional part as well, and the attitude toward life these athletes and donors try to take with them when they go back to their trying lives.

Take, for instance, Vivienne.  She is a Transplant Athlete from Alabama who competed in swimming last week.  When Katie, my cousin/donor Pam, and I went to support another Team Georgia member in her swimming competition, we couldn't get into the crowded poolside area.  Instead we went to observe her race from an enclosed observation deck, where we realized many upstairs were staring at one particular area.  There, a woman was in the pool at the end of her lane, holding on to the side and facing the wall as if to catch her breath.

And that's exactly what Vivienne was doing, despite the fact the rest of her competitors had long since left the pool, and another race was beginning next to her, she was going to finish that race.

A paramedic wheelchair-ready, her Team Captain, other teammates, representatives from the Transplant Games, and all the eyes of those in the swimming area.  That was the backdrop as Vivienne inched her way - sometimes on her own and other times by grabbing the plastic rope that outlined her lane - all the way down the pool and back again.  While it took several men to help her out, the cheers and tears from everyone who could see announced that Vivienne had indeed finished that race, no matter how long it took her.  And that was also the moment most saw that Vivienne not only was a transplant recipient by being an athlete, she had also done this with only one leg.

Katie said afterward that the Transplant Games were the most non-toxic environment one can be part of since everyone there is supporting everyone else.  The transplant recipients are there for the donors.  The donors are there for the transplant recipients.  Spectators are there for both.  And the whole event is for the 100,000 people nationwide who are waiting on a life-saving transplant.

I love my medals.  They serve as a symbol of goals I wanted for myself back when I couldn't even walk up a flight of stairs.  But I understand they don't symbolize the best of what the Games offer.  That is the overall gift of life, the promotion of giving it through organ donation and the celebration of that extension of living.  Medal or not.

We're alive and trying stoically to finish our race.  That's what it's all about.

So, thank you. Vivienne, and everyone in Pittsburgh for reminding me of that and giving me the hope I can maintain that attitude until the next U.S. Games in 2010.