They helped others get their lives back
Del. Scott, mentor are just one success story in Sentara’s 50-year kidney transplant program
The first thing Don Scott noticed was that Johnny Morrison was neglecting his flowers.
In the years they lived next to each other in Portsmouth, Scott, a state delegate, always admired Morrison’s yard. Morrison, a circuit court judge, would spend hours each weekend on the shrubbery and flowers. Hibiscuses are his favorite; he loves that they grow back each year.
“I don’t play golf,” Morrison said. “That was my therapy.”
“You’re never gonna meet a man that loves flowers more than Judge Morrison,” Scott said. “When I stopped seeing him out there, that’s when I knew something was going on.”
So, one summer morning in 2021, Scott knocked on Morrison’s door.
Scott didn’t know Morrison had been suffering from kidney disease, that he was weeks away from dialysis, and that wife Cynthia, his two daughters, and even his nieces were not a match for a transplant.
Cynthia Morrison, who serves as clerk of courts for Portsmouth, remembers Scott’s immediate reaction.
“We’ve got this,” Scott said.
Scott went home to ask wife Mellanda what she thought about him giving a kidney.
Later, Scott learned he was a match.
Morrison received Scott’s kidney in September 2021 at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. The hospital’s kidney transplant program, which is turning 50 years old this month, is the only one of its kind east of Interstate 95.
“They’re sick and complicated patients, and they need somebody who will really take some time to take care of them,” said Dr. Harlan Rust, a nephrologist and the medical director of the hospital’s kidney transplant program, of patients suffering kidney failure. “Transplants are particularly rewarding because we have people who are stuck on dialysis and when they get a transplant in many ways they get their life back.”
After an initial health screen, which Scott passed, the first indicator of if a person’s kidney might be a “match” is blood type. Morrison has type O blood, which puts him at a disadvantage, as type O and type B kidneys are harder to come by. His family history of kidney disease means blood relatives are more likely to be ruled
out.
Struggling to find a donor is common in the Black community, Rust said. Of the 95 kidneys transplanted last year at SNGH from living and deceased donors, 59% of recipients were Black. However, 68% of patients on Sentara’s wait list are Black, compared with 32% of the national average. Only 7.4% of living kidney donors at Sentara were Black.
Scott and Morrison are Black. But Scott, who wasn’t sure about his blood type before starting the donation process, was still surprised to find that he had type O blood, just like Morrison. Other markers lined up, too.
Roland French, the longtime transplant coordinator at the hospital, remembers that Scott asked many of the right questions — such as how long the recovery process would be (long) and what healthy habits he could use to maintain health following the procedure.
By agreeing to a transplant date in September 2021, Scott knew he risked losing an election. But with Morrison just weeks from needing dialysis, his choice was clear.
“The worst thing that will ever happen to me will not be losing an election,” Scott said. “I really believed it was God’s will, and I was going to do his will. Period.”
Besides, without Morrison, Scott might not have ever run for the House of Delegates.
In 2014, Morrison encouraged Scott, who had pursued a career in business despite graduating from Louisiana State University’s law school in 1994 after a seven-year detour following a drug-related felony arrest in his last year of law school, to successfully take the Virginia bar exam. In 2019, Morrison held the Bible as Scott took the oath of office in the House of Delegates.
Scott and Morrison have very similar backgrounds — growing up in large families with single mothers, and overcoming a background of poverty. To the Morrisons, whose adult daughters had already moved out, the Scotts were like a second family.
“He looked up to me as a mentor, and I looked up to him as a son,” Morrison said.
The day of the surgery was a blur for Scott. After a TV interview outside of the hospital, Scott was whisked inside where all of his clothes were put into a big white paper bag. He and Mellanda said a prayer before the staff put IVs in.
Cynthia Morrison and her daughters were glued to the TV screen showing patients’ statuses for hours, even after staff locked the waiting room doors.
“It was the longest surgery I had ever experienced,” she said.
While Johnny Morrison stayed in the hospital a few extra days, the invasive nature of the kidney removal surgery kept Scott incapacitated for weeks. Scott finally made it out of the house for the election in November.
“I went out on Election Day, and I was in a bit of pain when I went out but I was like, ‘OK, I can do this,” Scott said.
“That was my first real time being out in a while.”
Scott and Morrison say the public nature of the transplant led community members to reach out and share their own experiences. Morrison, who didn’t even realize anything was wrong until his wife pointed out his slow movement and fading disposition, said he hopes to raise community awareness around kidney disease, which Rust said can be largely asymptomatic.
“The Black community needs a whole lot of education about kidney disease because it’s a silent killer, just like hypertension, and we in the community are not conscious about it,” Morrison said. “Go to the doctor. You don’t know what your kidneys are doing.”
After months of recovery, Morrison is back on the bench. Fueled by lots of bacon that Cynthia sneaked into the Scott house, Scott won reelection, and was elected June 1 as House minority leader.
“The difference between what Johnny looks like now and then is like day and night,” Scott said. “To watch his energy now, and to watch his color and how he carries himself — I mean, he couldn’t even walk well before. It’s amazing.”