Eleven years ago Loveland resident Michelle Pardo received a bone marrow transplant to help with the cancer diagnosis she had already been dealing with for years. Now, not even a full month ago, she won seven medals at a national event.
Pardo was part of Team Rocky Mountain at the 2022 Transplant Games of America, an event held every two years that brings together thousands of transplant recipients, living donors, donor families, individuals on the waiting list, caregivers, transplant professionals, supporters and spectators for the “world’s largest celebration of life,” according to the event’s website.
During the weeklong event, held this year at the end of July into early August in San Diego, 40 state teams and several international teams made up of transplant recipients and living donors, competed in 20 athletic and recreational competitions.
While Pardo’s most recent stage in the story of her transplant journey was told with the games, she said she has had an understanding of the world of organ and tissue donation for 30 years. Pardo said that her daughter Brittney Moreno, known when she was younger as “baby Brit,” received a successful heart transplant at just 3 months old.
“Now she is 31,” Pardo said. “I have been in this for a long time.”
But the world of transplants would not just stop at her daughter. Pardo said that she was first diagnosed with cancer in 2003 and, after years of battling it, decided to undergo a bone marrow transplant in June of 2011.
She said that her doctors were amazed at the way that it helped her and has helped in her continued recovery.
“They were just shocked,” she said.
Pardo said while her daughter had competed in the games in the past, this was the first year that she decided to enter. Competing in the 50-to-59 age bracket, Pardo went on to win seven medals throughout the games: three bronze, two silver and two gold.
She said that while many people spent a long time training for the games, she decided to compete to just have some fun.
“It was awesome,” she said.
Her medals won’t just be hung up in her home, as Pardo is planning to send one gold medal to the family of the heart donor who gave her daughter a heart more than 30 years ago and the other gold medal to the donor of her bone marrow.
Pardo is also hoping to use her achievements at the game to help raise awareness of the importance of organ donation and what it means, not just for her but for so many others.
She said that her family is fortunate to have received the life-saving transplants they did, and is hoping that if someone sees her story they can sit down and have a discussion about choosing to be an organ donor should something happen to them.
“Not many families are lucky enough to get one transplant, but we got two,” she said, later adding “I just want to bring awareness that transplantation works.”
