For Saint Anselm’s Amanda Conger, her biggest assist comes off the ice

Again in January 2019, proper within the coronary heart of the hockey season, Saint Anselm head coach Kerstin Matthews had a gathering with one in all her workforce captains, Amanda Conger. It wasn’t your typical mid-season dialog between coach and participant, although.

Conger had some information to share that eclipsed something that may occur inside a hockey rink.

“I assumed I owed it to her to inform her,” Conger stated. “So I went into her workplace someday and instructed her that I used to be within the strategy of donating my kidney.”

On the time, Conger was fifth on the workforce in scoring, a pacesetter each on and off the ice for a Hawks squad that was effectively on its solution to the New England Girls’s Hockey Alliance championship. However Matthews’ first ideas weren’t about how Conger’s resolution would have an effect on her hockey workforce.

“Your preliminary thought is, as a human being, how that is going to have an effect on her life?” Matthews stated. “And she or he by no means considered that.

“To make use of the phrases she restored my religion in mankind…it was simply wonderful.”

The earlier summer time, Conger was interning at Thunder Highway, a inventory automobile race monitor close to her dwelling in Vermont. It was a type of internship positions that didn’t have a becoming title—she did a bit of every little thing across the monitor.

One automobile all the time caught out to her: Cameron Ouellette’s. It was vibrant pink, in a present of assist for breast most cancers consciousness.

Throughout the center of the season, although, that vibrant pink automobile stopped displaying up. The official phrase afterward was that Ouellette was coping with one thing extraordinarily troublesome health-wise and wouldn’t be returning to race.

Conger didn’t be taught the seriousness of Ouellette’s situation—and even that she may be capable of assist him—till she was again at Saint Anselm for her junior yr.

“I used to be scrolling on Fb, and I noticed that he put out a plea that he had stage 5 kidney illness, and if anybody that was studying the put up had any curiosity in turning into an organ donor, to request the packet of data,” she stated.

Earlier than seeing Ouellette’s Fb put up, Conger had no private experiences with organ donation. Nobody in her household or any shut buddies had ever gone by way of it, both as a donor or a recipient. However her older brother, Matt, had as soon as donated bone marrow to a stranger.

After watching her brother achieve this a lot for somebody in want, Conger knew she wished to assist somebody in the identical approach, if she was ever given the chance.

“Once I noticed Cameron’s put up, I simply thought, ‘I believe that is my likelihood,”’ she stated. “‘I don’t suppose I’ll be his donor, however I ought to no less than strive.’”

Conger had an extended chat together with her mother and father about what it might imply to really donate her kidney, and by the top of that dialog, she determined she wished to undergo with it. She known as up the UVM Medical Middle to request extra details about turning into a donor for Ouellette.

She acquired a name in early January, when the Hawks have been on the highway in Minnesota for a pair of video games, that the UVM transplant workforce wished to maneuver ahead together with her as a donor. At that time, she went to her coach to let her know she was going to be donating her kidney.

It was not information Matthews was anticipating to get, as a result of, effectively, who would? However on the identical time, she wasn’t precisely shocked to listen to it from Conger.

“She’s all the time form of had that opinion of, ‘I’ve been given a lot, and so I ought to benefit from every little thing I’ve been given to be grateful and grateful for what I’ve,’” Matthews stated of Conger. “I believe she actually lives her life that approach, not simply in what she did for this explicit story. However typically, I believe that’s how she lives her life, whether or not it’s serving to another person or giving up herself in order that another person can profit.”

For Conger, she knew there was an opportunity she may not return to play her senior season after the surgical procedure. She determined to not inform the entire workforce at that time, as a result of she didn’t need it to be a distraction going into the NEWHA playoffs. Largely, she wished to be pleased with the final video games she performed as a junior in case they have been the final of her profession.

In her final two video games that yr, she scored three objectives and 7 factors and helped Saint Anselm to the 2019 NEWHA Event championship.

After the season was over, Conger went by way of some fairly rigorous testing to ensure she was the suitable match for kidney donation. That consisted of a prolonged interview course of with all the transplant workforce at UVM.

Conger says it nearly felt like they have been making an attempt to discourage her from donating her kidney. Had she considered what would occur if Ouellette’s physique rejected the kidney? Had anybody pressured her into this resolution or promised her one thing in return?

However actually, that workforce of specialists was simply there to advocate for her personal wellbeing all through the method, and ensure the surgical procedure can be as useful for her because it was for Ouellette.

“They stunning a lot stated giving your kidney is the straightforward half. However it’s the month after, the three months after, the six months after,” Conger stated. “How are you going to focus in the event you’re at college or studying methods to prepare once more? How will my physique and my psychological state be capable of sustain? Athletes are skilled to push themselves, however I may solely elevate 5 kilos. So is that one thing I’ll be capable of do with out hurting myself and eager to elevate extra?”

She additionally had to consider how she’d really feel about Ouellette getting again in a race automobile after going by way of with the surgical procedure. Would that sit effectively together with her?

“It didn’t matter to me as a result of I simply wished to get Cameron again to his regular life and doing one thing he loves, and he loves race vehicles,” Conger stated. “So if he’s going to return in a single, then that’s nice.”

Ultimately, the conclusion the workforce got here to was a agency “sure”—they wished to maneuver ahead together with her. At UVM’s transplant heart, although, the coverage is to have donors beneath the age of 24 wait three months earlier than transplant surgical procedure, simply to be completely positive they need to undergo with it.

There was no hesitation for Conger. As soon as the three months have been up, she known as to schedule the surgical procedure. The date was set for June 11, 2019, a Tuesday. The Friday earlier than, she met Ouellette at Thunder Highway and instructed him for the primary time that she was his donor.

The monitor’s proprietor, Chris Michaud, walked her over to Ouellette’s race trailer. Each of their households have been there.

“Chris gave a bit speech and he was like, ‘Cameron, do you need to meet your donor?’ After which pointed to me,” Conger stated. “After which the tears got here and I used to be hugging everybody, and I couldn’t cease crying as a result of I used to be simply so excited to lastly inform them. Earlier that day, I put a wristband on Cameron and his household and simply stated, ‘So long.’ That they had no clue it was me.”

The next week, they underwent the surgical procedure. The transplant went easily for each of them, although Ouellette needed to keep within the hospital for a short time longer.

Afterward, Conger says it was unusual trying on the scars on her physique, realizing that she was completely wholesome all the time and the surgical procedure wasn’t obligatory for her. However it helped her put issues into perspective when she would go go to Ouellette within the hospital.

“Moving into to see Cameron, I spotted no, I clearly had a surgical procedure for a purpose. I gave an organ to someone,” she stated. “I believe seeing him was actually the half that was wonderful, to know that I had an influence on somebody’s life.”

Regardless of not with the ability to elevate greater than 5 kilos after the surgical procedure, Conger made all of it the best way again to the Hawks’ lineup for opening night time again within the fall. She performed in all however one recreation this season for Saint Anselm.

For those who speak to her about it, you may get the impression that such a comeback is not any huge deal. However as her coach, Matthews acknowledges how troublesome it was for Conger to have the ability to make it again to the ice—and preserve taking part in all through her total senior season.

“You watch different athletes wrestle with an athletic damage, one thing that occurred due to the love of the sport, they usually wrestle they usually battle to remain in it,” Matthews stated. “And right here’s a child who did one thing so selfless, after which went by way of a extremely exhausting restoration behind closed doorways. No one’s there to see that half.

“You could possibly bodily see the fatigue on her. That, to me, is probably the most spectacular half in some regards to the story, as a result of there was by no means part of her that stated, ‘I want I hadn’t.’”

In actual fact, all through all the course of, from when she first known as up UVM Medical Middle to now, Conger’s conviction by no means wavered. Even earlier than she was primary on Ouellette’s transplant listing, she was positive that she was going to donate her kidney to him.

Matthews notes that’s simply barely out of her character for Conger. Throughout her 4 years at Saint Anselm, Matthews has come to know her as somebody who listens intently after which thinks on it earlier than making any selections, as a substitute of simply reacting.

“I believe some youngsters now are a bit bit extra reactive and impulsive,” Matthews stated. “I discover Amanda to be a bit bit extra considerate and actually be sure that she does what she needs.”

However when Conger got here to her and let her know that she was going by way of this course of, she was so positive that she wished to do it. Matthews remembers being a bit reserved the primary time they spoke about it. She was supportive of Conger’s resolution it doesn’t matter what, however she additionally wished to be sure that for somebody who’d all the time been so deliberative, she’d thought by way of all the doable penalties.

So the following time they spoke about it, Matthews dug in a bit deeper.

“I stated, ‘Amanda, I simply need to be sure to’ve thought this by way of. I assist you. However what when you’ve got youngsters sometime they usually want a kidney?’” Matthews stated. “She checked out me and didn’t even hesitate and stated, ‘Coach, somebody would do that for them.’”

Donating an organ might be one thing that might be thought-about a frightening expertise to most individuals. Giving it to somebody you hardly even know is maybe much more so. It takes an enormous leap of religion to surrender a lot of your self and belief that down the highway, somebody, perhaps even a stranger, will give it proper again in the event you want it.

In that sense, Conger’s story is much less concerning the influence we will have by making a sacrifice for another person, and extra about how a lot better that influence might be once we consider merely, unquestioningly, within the good in different folks, and that they’ll all the time return the identical.

In honor of Conger’s unimaginable selflessness, she was named the winner of the 2020 Hockey Humanitarian Award. The award is given yearly to 1 NCAA hockey participant, males’s or ladies’s, who embodies values reminiscent of private character, scholarship, and the giving of oneself off the ice.

Conger is fast to go off recognition to these round her for profitable this award.

“Each mentor and each coach that I’ve had, I prefer to suppose they formed me into the participant that I’m and the person who I’m,” she stated. “So I believe profitable this award extra so is a mirrored image of the folks round me. I hope that I made my neighborhood proud and my mother and father proud and my previous coaches, as a result of it’s clearly not simply me. It’s not simply a person effort.”

The recipient of the Hockey Humanitarian Award can be gifted with $2,500 to donate to the charity of their selection. Conger will donate hers to Donate Life Vermont. She hopes, above all, that her story will educate others on the significance of organ donation and encourage them to contemplate turning into a donor themselves.

With that mindset, she’s already undoubtedly left a mark on her teammates and this system at Saint Anselm going ahead.

“Seeing the best way the ladies responded, seeing different issues that I believe women have determined to do, whether or not it’s volunteering or giving of themselves another way, has been an ideal instance for everybody,” Matthews stated. “All of us have to guide and be who we’re in our personal persona. I believe Amanda has helped folks problem themselves a bit bit to understand that they may give extra, and it simply could be another way.”