Organ recipients' daily grind the greatest gift of all but today's outlook different than before.

Douglas Predmore is more active than most 66-year-olds. He wakes up each day about 6 a.m., eats a healthy breakfast to supercharge his body, then he's off to work around the house.

The retired plumber builds closets and sheds, repairs leaky faucets and rewires lights.

When the housework is done, this Washington Township, Pa., man walks two miles with his faithful canine companion, Lucky. It marks the end of the day.

Predmore's wife, Joan, says her husband does too much. He's never been one to sit still. "Work. Work. Work. That's all he does," she says. "He's working harder now than ever."

Predmore just grins and fires back, "You think I'm going to sit around the house and listen to you holler at me?"

After 45 years together, their sparring is filled with love and laughter.

With his lighthearted attitude and active lifestyle, it's hard to believe that only six years ago, this same man could barely walk from his bedroom to the living room because his heart was so damaged. He was so close to death, only a heart transplant could have saved his life.

Predmore now realized he's one of the lucky ones. About 17 people die each day waiting for transplant organs.

But those odds can be improved.

April is Organ and Tissue Donation Month and Predmore says now is the time for people around the globe to sign donor cards and make their wishes known to their next of kin.

It doesn't matter if they're young or old, what their weight or height is, or their race. As the old saying goes, what really counts is what's inside.

An organ donor gave Predmore a second chance.

"If I didn't get that transplant, I know for sure that I wouldn't be here today," he says.

He's lucky to be alive

Predmore always knew he was susceptible to heart troubles. His mother and father died from heart attacks. Mom was 52, Dad was 71.

Predmore suffered his first heart attack in 1991, and had another about two years later. Medicine and rest nursed him back to health, but it was short-lived. In 1996, his condition took a deadly turn.

One day, he woke up filled with water, unable to breathe readily or walk even a couple of blocks. Doctors said he had an enlarged heart.

For months, he made trips back and forth to Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia for evaluations. His condition worsened.

"He could get around the house and do things like get dressed and eat, but he couldn't do much more," Joan Predmore recalls. "I kept asking, when is the hospital ever going to keep him?"

On Aug. 1, 1996, Temple admitted Predmore and put him on the list for a heart transplant. luckily, his blood type is A-positive, which is common.

He had to wait only 20 days, but he said those days dragged on.

Other patients had been waiting for more than a year. Some of his buddies had died waiting. It is the harsh reality in any transplant ward.

"I had to accept that," Predmore says. "It's not like I could leave. I needed a new heart."

The organ came from a 19-year-old on a respirator. The Predmores know little more. That heart gave Douglas new life.

He returned home to the Slate Belt just 10 days later and had only one minor rejection. Each subsequent checkup has been better than the previous one.

At his last appointment, the doctors saw him for only a few minutes, then told him to leave because he was in such fine shape.

"They said 'Get out of here already before you get sick,'" he says. His immune system is weak.

Aside from the scars on his chest, Joan Predmore says, the only lingering effects of the transplant come from the regimen of medication.

Predmore suffers from slight memory loss. "If I tell him three things, he remembers two. Can you remember what you had for lunch yesterday?" she asks her husband.

He says no, but it doesn't bother him much.

:Why do I need to remember what I ate, as long as I ate? I remember the important things. That's good enough," Predmore says.

He feels lucky just to be alive. in fact, Predmore named his dog Lucky because the Black Labrador mix is his lucky charm. The dog had been a frequent visitor, showing up on the Predmores' lawn for three or four days and then disappearing. The day Doug was admitted to Temple, Lucky came and never left. His owner had moved and deserted him.

Doug didn't know the owner had moved until he arrived home from the hospital and Lucky jumped off the patio chair and bounded down the driveway to greet him.

"It was a terrific surprise," he says.

Now the two are inseparable. Their bond is only strengthened by the fact that both man and man's best friend are lucky to be here today.

The dog has the Predmores to thank for that. Douglas thanks organ donation.

The child will also give

Karen Horinko will take her 7-year-old son to Disney World this year. She's been promising him this trip for more than two years.

Thanks to a kidney transplant, they can finally go see Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Donald.

The West Easton woman had been living her life around dialysis treatments. Three times a week, she had to travel into New York City to have a machine pump the toxins from her blood. The four-hour ordeal also drained her energy.

now she doesn't have to worry about being too tired to walk around the theme park or having to fly home for treatments. She can go and enjoy Nicholas can't wait.

"I have been looking forward to this for so long." the boy says, already itching in his seat.

Horinko, 30, received her kidney last July 26 at Lehigh Valley Hospital's Transplant Center in Salisbury Township.

Her kidneys failed in 1998 from chronic interstitial nephritis, a hereditary condition that causes scarring of the organ's filters and a breakdown of the connective tissues.

Horinko spent 3 1/2 years on the national waiting list - an average wait. Kidneys are given on a first-come, first-serve basis. Unfortunately, there just aren't enough.

Patients stay on the list until a matching kidney becomes available, or until their bodies just can't wait any longer.

Many die waiting.

Horinko's came in time. And with a new kidney, she has a new life.

She can eat what she wants. no more having to stay away from high-potassium, high-sodium foods like potatoes, corn and tomatoes.

She's not tired anymore. She doesn't have to stop at the top of the stairs to catch her breath.

And no more living her life around dialysis.

Instead of working 3 to 11 p.m. and weekends, the registered nurse can return to her 8:30a.m. to 4:30p.m. shift, which means she gets to spend more time with her son and her husband, Jamie.

"That was the worst part, being away from him," Horinko says of Nicholas. By the time I got home, he would be asleep. Even if I got home early, I would get to spend a half hour."

Nicholas says he's glad his mom is home.

"I missed her."

Horinko doesn't know how long this good life will last. A transplanted kidney usually survives about six years before it needs to be replaced. Yet some can hold up for 20 years.

Horinko hopes hers lasts a lifetime.

Her mother, Lorrie Krahwinkel of Easton, is on the waiting list for her second transplant. She also suffers from chronic interstitial nephritis. She lost her kidney function in 1980. She had a kidney transplant at LVH in 1992, but the organ failed in 1998. Now, she must wait once more.

If more people opted to be organ donors, Horinko says, the wait wouldn't be so long and people wouldn't die.

Because of her family's experience, many of her relatives, friends and neighbors have signed up to be donors. But many more are needed.

The misconceptions that hospitals won't try as hard to save you if you're an organ donor, or that senior citizens' organs are no good, are false, Horinko says.

Other than religious conviction, she says there's no reason to balk at being an organ donor. Unless someone needs an organ or has received one, most people don't think about donating.

"But they should," Horinko says. "You can change somebody's life."

Her son Nicholas has already thought about it and has made up his mind.

"I'm not old enough yet, but when I am, I am going to be an organ donor," he says. He's seen the impact on his mother.

Horinko's turnaround is a gift from a young person from Philadelphia. She plans to write a thank-you letter to the family now that they've had time to grieve.

She has a lot to thank them for. "... Their son or daughter gave me a life."

Living on after death

In the tiny, brightly-lighted hospital room where the , , family sat on March 7, deciding whether to donate 51-year-old , ,'s organs, one voice rang out above the rest.

It was the woman's only daughter, , ,, who kept repeating, "No."

The 26-year-old from Lower Saucon Township didn't want her mother's organs donated. She cringed at the idea of her mom being kept alive by machines even a day after she had technically died.

What would happen to her soul?
Would her mother's body feel it?
What if her organs were no good?

All these questions crowded her mind as she remembered the good times with her mom. The two were more than mother and daughter, they were best friends.

She remembers going ghost-hunting with her mom and hanging out with their friends.

"It all just bothered me. Her soul was gone. She was gone," says , ,, an obituary clerk at The Express-Times.

And her beating heart was powered only by machines. "It was like the living dead."

Although , , disagreed, her father and uncles overruled her and made the decision - donate.

They say , ,, a devoted wife and caring mother, was so giving while on earth, she would have wanted to give to others in death.

"They said it's going to hurt, it's going to be bad, but maybe we can save someone else from going through this pain," , , recalls.

More than a month after her mother's death, she now agrees with the family choice. She's even happy. It has helped somehow in her grief, she says.

, , , , died at St. Luke's Hospital in Fountain Hill from a brain aneurysm. She had drifted in and out of comas for 16 days.

On Feb.18, she suffered her first brain aneurysm in the bathroom of her Lower Saucon home. , , and her father, , ,, found her and rushed her to the hospital.

They stayed by her bedside as she went in and out of seizures. , , says there were times when her mom was responsive, twitching her eyes and squeezing her daughter's hand.

But at other times, she was in another place.

On March 7, , , suffered a second aneurysm. The doctors told the family they could not operate because her brain was too swollen.

, , , , was brain dead.

"The aneurysm was like a lion lurking that could pounce at any time," , , says. "The only way I can describe it is an act of God."

, , says he also wrestled with the idea of organ donation. It was only after consulting with other family members and donor counselors that he decided to say yes.

"I was very reluctant at first. I thought she had been through enough," he says. "But I'm OK with it now. I think it was the right thing to do."

, , says he never spoke to , , about whether she wanted to donate her organs. It's a conversation that rarely comes up.

He only wishes he had known. , , says he will always harbor some doubt, but he believes time will heal his uncertainty.

So will the knowledge of knowing she lives on.

:Out of this mess, I find myself thinking that there are three families that will be helped. That's the only condolences I get," he says.

The family donated , ,'s two kidneys and liver. One kidney went to a 53-year-old man, the other to a 71-year-old woman. Her liver is inside a 52-year-old man. In dealing with her grief over the past weeks, , ,, Too, has clung to the knowledge that her mom will live on in other bodies.

As an obituary writer and a student studying at Northampton Community College to be a funeral director, , , is no stranger to death.

But when death hit home, it became something very different from what's in her books.

Before, while writing obituaries, she would think of the good times this deceased had shared with their family and friends.

"I would picture them sipping lemonade on the porch or watching their child's first step." she says.

Organ donation has helped , , to heal.

"Some day in the future, it will really help to know something good came out of my mother's death. I can say my mom died, but ..." and she stops speaking.

The abrupt ending holds a note of hope for the three lives extended by one very personal death - her mom's.

'He still goes on in me'

For Dennis Turner, life must go on. The 60-year-old heart transplant recipient from Phillipsburg says he has to stay alive for the 22-year-old man from Delaware who gave him that life.

Turner has vowed to live for both of them.

"I can't just sit around and waste this heart. I owe it to him to make the most of it," he says. "I want his family to know he still goes on in me."

Turner received his new heart five months ago. it was his 60th birthday present and he makes sure he treats it like a precious gift.

He had waited for 124 days at Temple's Heart Failure Unit, a ward for those in desperate need of a transplant. He dreamed of the moment doctors would tell him a heart was on its way.

As the days ticked by, Turners's health slipped away from him. He suffered nine heart attacks and had three bypass surgeries. A new heart was his last chance.

"I would be dead right now," Turner says while sitting on a recliner in his Prospect Street living room, where he's recovering smoothly.

Turner goes back to Temple University Hospital once a month for a biopsy of his new heart. Each time the doctors have given him thumbs up.

His blood pressure and breathing are right on track. He hasn't suffered any rejections.

"I feel great," he says.

He admits some days are better than others. At times, he feels worn down. The medications can give him the shakes. And he can't taste food. He doesn't know if he's eating cardboard or steak.

But Turner says these are miniscule setbacks when he considers the alternative. He could be in a coffin.

He plans to make the most of his last chance.

Now that the weather is warmer, Turner wants to take daily walks and go swimming. He's looking forward to his first vacation in three years with Diane, his wife of 38 years. They're jetting off to Florida to visit friends. Turner wouldn't have dared to jet off anywhere before his transplant, fearing there could be complications.

"Anything could have gone wrong," he says. But he no longer worries. He chases his granddaughters around the jungle gym and takes long drives with all the windows open.

By now, he's gardening. He had to wait six months before daring to touch dirt. Any exposure to bacteria could have led to rejection of his heart.

"I'm going to enjoy life, enjoy the sunshine, enjoy the air, knowing that I wouldn't be here without this transplant." Turner says.

While he's celebrating, friends are still struggling at Temple. He sits the ward often, knowing he could be lying there, too.

He sees the pain in their faces.

That's why Turner says organ donation is so critical.

Sitting near the bottom of the stairs that lead to his second floor. Turner reaches over to pet his old dog, Nicko, and says you only need to look into those faces back at Temple to know how much organ donation means.

"It saves lives. It saved mine."

Reporter Linda Lisanti can be reached at 610-258-7171 or by e-mail at lisanti@express-times.com