Risa Caron Gans
Oct 7, 1959 – Nov 4, 2018
The tears are streaming down my face and my heart is heavy as I write this post about an amazing woman and friend, Risa Gans. I learned of her passing a couple of days ago, and attempted to get confirmation as there was some conflicting information about when she passed. Late last night, I received two confirmations of her passing.
Risa was a driving force in the organ transplant community. She had two double lung transplants (1996 & 2005) She started at least a couple of sites for transplant recipients and donors, as well as a beacon of hope to those that were waiting. The sites were TransplantBuddies and TransplantFriends. They were a “safe place” for those of us in the transplant community to come and ask questions, to share out thoughts, our fears and also share our hope and prayers for those fighting to simply stay alive. As Facebook grew and took off, she also ran a group there. She touched, encouraged and helped educate literally thousands of people.
She touched me, she touched my life in profound ways. The first year after my heart transplant, when I seemed lost at times, I lurked on her site, TransplantBuddies.com. I learned a lot and Risa and the folks on that site helped calm my fears and helped to educate me. I finally joined her and her community around my first transplant anniversary and we’ve helped each other through some issues over the years. We stayed in touch on issues over time, and when she kind of “disappeared” from her online world a couple of weeks ago, and through requests from others that also knew and loved her I started looking and found her “obituary” –
https://jewishfunerals.com/service/risa-caron-gans/
or here –
She is mourned by thousands.
Thank you Risa for everything, you are an AMAZING person that will always be LOVED and missed!
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- risa 1
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- risa 3
my2ndheartbeat.wordpress.com 