April 14--People associated with Spradley automobile dealerships joke at times about their other "parts department."
But those discussions are as serious as life and death.
Not too many businesses have seen so many employees and relatives whose lives have been saved by organ transplants.
Lynn Spradley, daughter of company founder Dale Spradley, knows the value of organ donor programs and having friends and family members willing to literally give a part of themselves.
Last weekend, she said, there was a drive at the Chevrolet dealership asking customers and employees to register with donor lists. Another is planned April 30 at the Ford outlet.
Lynn Spradley, 46, is alive today thanks to the generosity of her best friend, Jami Baker.
Her sister-in-law, Carol Spradley, saw her father live many more years after receiving one of the first heart transplants.
They are but two of seven Spradley employees who have benefitted from an organ donor or donated one of their own.
Service advisor Duane Bissonnette's son, James, received a bone marrow transplant, technician Pete Failing's sister received a kidney in 1972 and parts manager Greg Duran's uncle willed his eyes.
Comptroller Dona Skaggs' son received a kidney from his father, Rick, after the boy was found to have kidney cancer while undergoing a routine sports physical during his senior year in high school.
Paul Zamora, service manager, is due to undergo a bone marrow transplant later this year, once a donor is found, to counter the spread of Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Lynn Spradley was diagnosed with a form of liver cancer nearly a decade ago, so rare it hadn't been seen in Colorado in 12 years, she said.
Because transplants did not have a high success rate for liver cancer victims, Lynn Spradley said she was low on the list for a new organ and unless someone stepped forward to donate, there wasn't much hope for an operation before the cancer engulfed her entire liver.
"We put out the word to the family to be tested," she said, and Baker, who was not a blood relative, stepped forward, too.
"I told her, 'I don't want you to do this,' and she told me, 'But I'm going to do this. You have two kids and I have two kids and I want you to live,' " Lynn Spradley said.
As it turned out, she said, "Hers matched as good or better if it would have been from brother or sister."
During a 12-hour procedure at the University of Colorado Medical Center, surgeons removed 60 percent of Baker's liver and replaced Lynn Spradley's damaged organ. People are able to donate a portion of their liver as the organ can grow back.
Because of infections and other complications, Lynn Spradley spent a year and a day in the hospital, while Baker went home after a week.
It was at the hospital that Lynn Spradley and her husband, Brett Macchietto, who works for Commercial Builders, became friends with a nurse, Traci Aldridge-Wachs.
"She took care of me for a whole year," she said.
But Aldridge-Wachs was sick, too, with kidney failure. So last year, Macchietto offered his kidney to Aldridge-Wachs and underwent the transplant procedure in April 2010.
"When you see somebody so sick, she was gray, real skinny, she looked really horrible. After the surgery, she looked so good," Lynn Spradley said.
While her husband had no qualms about the procedure, she said that donors must go through extensive interviews. "They have to go to a psychologist, to make sure you're doing it for the right reason.
"He said, though, 'Why wouldn't I do this? Why wouldn't I want to save her life?' ''
What really drives home the need for that kind of giving, Lynn Spradley said, is when she sees the number of dialysis centers that have opened in Pueblo in recent years to serve the growing number of patients with kidney failure, many of whom could be helped with a transplant.
That was one of the reasons the dealerships have been promoting sign-up lists.
Nicole Williams, part of the Donate Life organization in Colorado, said the number of people on the Colorado registry is small in the Pueblo area, compared to statewide. The registry is fed in large part by people who opt to be organ donors when they obtain their driver's licenses.
There also are bone marrow registries, handled locally by the Bonfils Blood Center, and national registries for other organs from living people. The driver's license registry authorizes removal of organs from the dead.
Williams said there also are "daisy-chain" registries where people whose organ may not be compatible with a sick relative's may donate to someone else and their loved one may receive a donation in turn.
Lynn Spradley said last weekend's effort added 11 people to the bone marrow list and that was good news to Zamora.
He thought he was lucky last summer when his own stem cells were harvested and used to rebuild bone marrow that was killed off to destroy the cancer.
But in December, Zamora had a relapse -- his own new marrow still couldn't fight the cancer cells. He'll be going back soon to receive a new stem cell transplant from a donor whose immune system may be more effective.
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