From a Funeral Suit to a Celebration Suit: Don Caldwell’s Life After Liver Transplant

Barbara Doyle

5 days ago

5 min read

Don Caldwel, liver recipient in his "celebration suit". — Don in his "Celebration Suit"

Don Caldwell bought the suit because he wanted to look his best at a family wedding in Boston. His health was failing, but the wedding would bring everyone together, and he wanted to be part of it. Standing in Zahner’s Clothiers in Vernon, he turned to his wife with a remark that reflected both his humor and the uncertainty they were living with: “It looks so good, you can bury me in this suit.” His wife, he recalls, did not find that especially funny.

Today, Don calls it his “Celebration Suit.” The man who once imagined being buried in it has worn it on a red carpet, celebrating a life made possible by organ donation. Since receiving a liver transplant in April 2023, he has found a deeper appreciation for family, new friendships, and a calling he never anticipated. He has a name for this version of himself: “Don 2.0.”

Living With Uncertainty

For much of his life, Don focused on working hard and providing for his family. A computer specialist on the manufacturing side of Pratt & Whitney, he took pride in work that helped produce parts for jet engines. He enjoyed his career and put long hours into it. Looking back, he recognizes how much of his attention went to fulfilling responsibilities rather than fully experiencing the moments around him.

In 2019, his wife found him unconscious on the bathroom floor. A serious bleeding episode brought the severity of his liver disease into focus, and discussions about transplantation became more urgent after a liver cancer diagnosis in 2022. Don describes the waiting period as a difficult space between being too sick to live normally and not knowing when a transplant might become possible. His family supported him, but uncertainty remained part of daily life.

A call in February brought him to the hospital, where he was being prepared for surgery before learning that the transplant could not proceed. He went home disappointed, then attended the family wedding in Boston. When he looks at photographs from that celebration, he sees how ill he truly was, something he had not fully recognized at the time.

In April 2023, he received the liver transplant that would change his life.

A Promise Made in the Hospital after Liver Transplant

Don remembers waking after surgery with a feeling he still struggles to describe. “I wanted to shout from the rooftops how good I felt,” he says. As he recovered at Hartford Hospital, gratitude quickly became something more personal and purposeful. Still in the hospital, he wrote his first note honoring his donor and made a promise: “I would pay this legacy forward.”

He continues writing to his donor’s family each year. They have not responded, and he respects that, recognizing that his second chance came during a time of profound loss for another family. His gratitude doesn't depend on meeting them or getting a reply. “I just want them to know that I’m still holding that promise,” he says. The question became how to turn that promise into the way he lived.

Finding His Way to the Red Carpet

Don Cladwell and his transplant psychologist holding a Donate Life CT sign — Don Caldwell and Dr. Rachel Cavallaro

Recovery brought more than renewed energy. Don also wrestled with why he had received this chance when others had not. Dr. Rachel Cavallaro, a clinical psychologist within Hartford Hospital’s transplant program, became an important resource as he navigated those emotions and considered what came next. Before transplant, he would not have imagined seeking that kind of support. Now, he describes her as someone who challenges him, understands him, and helps him move forward with greater confidence.

Don Caldwell is wearing his "Celebration Suit" tuxedo and presenting his new bow tie. — Don proudly sporting his red bow tie

Then he saw an invitation to Donate Life Connecticut’s screening of Ordinary Angels on National Donor Day, February 14, 2024. Guests were encouraged to dress for the red carpet, and Don knew exactly what he would wear. He returned to Zahner’s to find a red bow tie. Remembering his story, the staff gave it to him as a gift, a kindness that left him struggling to get out a thank-you. At the screening, the suit he had once called his funeral suit became a celebration suit.

That evening also helped connect Don with Lindsay Vigue, a living kidney donor, former executive director of Donate Life Connecticut, and transplant champion. “Lindsay has given me more opportunities than I would ever have found on my own,” he says. In April 2024, Don and his celebration suit became part of DLC’s Gentle Strength: Images of Generosity, Hope & New Life Through Transplant. His story was becoming a way to help others understand what organ donation makes possible.

Becoming Part of Someone Else’s Support System

For Don, some of the most meaningful opportunities happen in ordinary conversations. He participates in both a liver transplant group and a broader transplant group, and he speaks individually with people before and after transplantation. Connections that began in meetings have grown into friendships, shared meals, and text conversations filled with encouragement, information, and humor. There are people to turn to who understand without needing every detail explained.

That understanding matters to someone who remembers feeling lonely even with a loving family around him. “I wish I had known about some of these support groups earlier,” Don says. He now encourages others to seek connection sooner and offers something deeply personal in return: the willingness to listen and share what he has experienced. He knows that being supported by family and being understood by someone who has lived through transplant are different, valuable forms of care.

He is equally mindful of caregivers. Through his own family’s experience and conversations with others, Don has come to appreciate how much uncertainty and exhaustion they carry. He encourages them to make time for their own well-being and find someone they can talk with, particularly others who understand caregiving. When he tells people about Donate Life Connecticut, he talks about a community where they can find connection through shared experience.

Carrying the Gift of Life Forward after Liver Transplant

Group of Donate Life CT volunteers in the early morning hours at the Eversource Hartfor Marathon — Don Caldwell with a group of Donate Life CT volunteers at the Eversource Hartford Marathon

Don also shares his story with healthcare professionals through volunteering with Donate Life CT and through opportunities with New England Donor Services, speaking with incoming intensive care nurses and emergency physicians and returning to hospital units to thank staff. He wants them to see the life that continues beyond the care they provide. In 2026, the American Liver Foundation named him a LIVEr Champion for its Connecticut Liver Life Walk, adding another opportunity to speak about the gift he received and the people who make transplantation possible.

Don Caldwell with his wife and five grandchildren at the baptism or christening of one of the grandchildren — Don and his wife celebrating their grandchildren

Yet some of his most treasured experiences happen far from a microphone. Because of his transplant, Don has been able to meet two new grandchildren, children he believes he would not otherwise have lived to know. That time with family sits alongside the friendships, conversations, and opportunities to help that now fill his days. His celebration suit has become a reminder of that fuller life and of the donor whose gift made it possible. When Don describes what he is doing with his second chance, his words are simple: “This is my calling.”

Help Make Another Story Possible

Don’s story gives a human face to the meaning of organ donation: more time with grandchildren, new friendships, and the opportunity to become a source of strength for someone else. Register today as an organ and tissue donor through Donate Life Connecticut and share your decision with your loved ones. Your decision can offer hope to people waiting for another chance at life.

To learn more or become involved, connect with Donate Life Connecticut. Whether transplantation has touched your life personally or you are just beginning to learn about donation, we welcome your questions and your interest in our community.

Comments

Twice Saved:

Melissa Reynolds’ Extraordinary Journey Through Two Organ Transplants

Every organ donor makes a choice that echoes long after they’re gone. For Melissa Reynolds, two such choices — made by two strangers — kept her here to do the work she was born to do.

On the evening of October 9, 2024, Melissa Reynolds walked into Hartford Hospital not knowing she would not walk out again for four months.

She hadn’t planned to be admitted. She had gone from her endocrinologist’s office directly to the emergency department at her doctor’s insistence, bags unpacked, husband by her side, her mother meeting them there. Melissa, a recreational therapist at the Institute of Living since 2007 — one of Connecticut’s premier psychiatric care facilities — had spent years caring for some of the state’s most vulnerable people. She knew how hospitals worked. She didn’t think she was that sick.

She was wrong.

What followed was one of the most remarkable — and harrowing — journeys of survival that Donate Life Connecticut has ever had the privilege of hearing. It is a story about the fragility of life and the stunning resilience of the human spirit. It is a story about the extraordinary generosity of organ donors and the ripple effect of their gift. And it is a story about a woman who, even at her sickest, was already thinking about how she would give back.

A Health History She Couldn’t Outrun

Melissa had always known her immune system was compromised. She had fatty liver disease and a cluster of autoimmune conditions that made her body work harder than most just to get through the day. Working in a residential psychiatric program since the height of the pandemic in 2020, she had been exposed to illness repeatedly — and had come through it each time.

In June of 2024, she caught COVID again. It wasn’t the first time, and initially, it didn’t seem like the last. But this time, she didn’t fully bounce back. She pushed through — traveling internationally, working, living — even as her body was quietly losing a battle she didn’t know she was fighting.

“I was tired. I knew I was sick, but since COVID in 2020, I was always kind of sick. It was hard to know when things had really changed.”

By the time her endocrinologist examined her in early October, he couldn’t send her home. He triaged her directly to Hartford Hospital.

Into the ICU

The emergency department at Hartford Hospital was crowded the night Melissa arrived. She waited hours. When she was finally admitted, she had no idea how long she would be there. Her MELD score — a measurement of liver disease severity used to prioritize transplant candidates — was critically high.

Over the weeks that followed, Melissa was transferred between floors multiple times. Codes were called. She was moved to a cardiac unit. She experienced what clinicians call ICU delirium — a state of profound disorientation brought on by critical illness, sedation, and the relentless sensory disruption of intensive care. For Melissa, it was severe. The boundary between what was real and what wasn’t collapsed entirely.

“I thought I was dead. I saw a lot of themes around death. And there was always some truth to what I was seeing — I was dying. I just didn’t know it at the time.”

She would look over from her bed, confused, not knowing where she was or what day it was, and find a nurse standing there, smiling. “I got you. I got you.” It was a face she came to anchor herself to — a steady, human presence in the chaos. When the delirium finally lifted, she looked at that same nurse and thought: “Oh my God. You’re real.”

“I think what they say is true,” she reflects. “You don’t always remember what people did, but you always remember how they made you feel.”

Melissa spent at least six weeks — by some accounts, eight — in the ICU. Her coworkers at the Institute of Living didn’t know if she was coming back. Her family gathered. They had the kinds of conversations families have when hope is uncertain, and decisions are urgent. The news was that heavy.

The Call That Changed Everything

Two days after Thanksgiving 2024, a doctor came to Melissa’s bedside and told her they had found a liver.

She doesn’t remember every word of that conversation. She was still fragile, still in and out of clarity. But she remembers the essential facts: the donor was a woman in her late 30s who had died, the doctor believed, in a car accident. Young. Someone with a whole life ahead of her.

“I wish I could have remembered more from when he told me. But I was just so focused on what was happening next.”

What happened next was a full liver transplant performed overnight by Dr. Serrano and Dr. Emanuel. Because it was a holiday weekend, both surgeons worked through the night together. By Sunday morning, Melissa’s husband received a call. The surgery had gone well.

She came off the ventilator on Tuesday. Physical therapy began on Friday.

November 30, 2024. That date is now etched into Melissa Reynolds’ life the way birthdays are — because in every meaningful sense, it was one.

A Long Way Home

Recovery in the ICU and rehabilitation unit was not linear. Melissa went back and forth between care floors, navigated setback after setback, and slowly, painstakingly, began to rebuild what her body had lost. She relearned how to stand. She worked with physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech therapists. She continued dialysis three times a week, because the liver transplant had left her kidneys under severe strain.

She remembers a moment with her physical therapy team that she still talks about. She was frustrated. Her body wasn’t doing what she told it to. She couldn’t understand why something so simple felt impossible.

“They got down to my level and said, ‘You just had a liver transplant. You are so strong.’ And that was almost what I needed to keep going.”

A doctor on the rehabilitation unit told her she was one of the most motivated patients they had ever had. Melissa’s response has stayed with everyone who heard it:

“I have to be — and I have to stay positive — because I can’t even figure out how to get up or stand up. I have to get out of this hospital. I have a life left to live. I have to get back to work someday.”

That drive — paired with the daily encouragement of the nurses, therapists, dietary aides, and every staff member who walked through her door — is what she credits with pulling her through. “I am so thankful for the staff who kept me going every day and helped me to stay positive and focused,” she says. “Without them, I don’t think I could have done it.”

There were hard moments, too. One of them came when a doctor quietly told her that she would not be going home for Christmas. Melissa processed that one alone. She didn’t tell her family right away. She sat with it.

“I thought, you know what — get through it. This sucks. But get through it.”

She did. She was discharged on February 12, 2025, after 126 days in the hospital. When the elevator doors opened in the lobby, she was sitting in a wheelchair. Waiting for her — having stood in that lobby for nearly an hour — were her supervisor, a coworker, and four of her psychiatric clients, holding welcome home signs they had made themselves.

“I just started crying. The nurse was telling me I had to get in the car because it was freezing. But I couldn’t move. These are people I care for. And they came to wait for me.”

Finding a New Normal

Melissa started outpatient dialysis the very next day. Her schedule was three sessions a week. Doctors’ appointments filled the gaps. Home therapy continued. She leaned into music — always a coping skill, now a daily anchor — and into reading, which she had always loved but never made enough time for. She allowed herself, for the first time, the gift of stillness.

She also set a goal: she was going back to work.

On August 27, 2025, Melissa returned to the Institute of Living — 20 hours a week, working her schedule around dialysis days. The staff and clients who had once quietly prepared themselves for her absence watched her come through the door.

“People didn’t think I was going to make it. A lot of people had come to say goodbye. My coworkers had to grieve me at one point. And then I just walked back in.”

That same fall, in September 2025, Melissa attended the Donate Life Connecticut Gala — a celebration of the lives that organ donation touches. What most people in that room didn’t know was that she was desperately ill that night. She had been on dialysis earlier that day. She was nauseated throughout the event. She had been sick in the parking lot on the way in.

She stayed until the end.

That night, a woman named Danielle quietly followed her out and asked if she was okay. Danielle had walked her own transplant journey and recognized the signs. In that moment, a friendship was born — the kind that only forms between people who understand each other without explanation.

The Second Gift

By the fall of 2025, Melissa was on the kidney transplant list. After a liver transplant, recipients are given priority consideration for a kidney if one is needed within a certain timeframe — an acknowledgment of the physical toll the first surgery takes on the body’s other organs. Melissa was eager. She pushed her care team. “Can we do April? Let’s go. Let’s get this done.”

It doesn’t work like that. She knew that, too.

The night before Thanksgiving, she was at home with her family, laughing about food. She had missed every holiday the year before and was talking about how much she couldn’t wait to eat. She had all but given up on the kidney coming before the new year.

At 6:30 the next morning, her phone rang. She had one hour.

“I went around like a little kid on Christmas. I woke up my parents. I woke up my husband. I said, I’m getting a kidney!”

The surgery was on November 17, 2025. Her second deceased donor — this time, a man. She went in on a Monday. She was discharged on Friday.

Four days, compared to four months.

“The first time around was my whole journey. The kidney was a much different experience.”

Why She Tells Her Story

When Donate Life Connecticut asked Melissa what she hoped people would take from hearing her story, she didn’t hesitate.

“I want to bring awareness to organ donation. But I also want to acknowledge the care that hospital staff gives every single day — because without the people inside those walls, I don’t think I would be here. I had incredible support on the outside. But the people who were with me 24 hours a day, who showed up every shift, who encouraged me and made me laugh and pushed me — they saved my life, too.”

Melissa had registered as an organ donor at sixteen years old. She didn’t know anyone who had received a transplant. She had never thought deeply about what it meant. When she was asked at the DMV, her instinct was simply: if something happened to me, why wouldn’t I?

“To me, it was just being a human.”

Now she is on the other side of that question — twice over. Two people she will never meet made decisions that kept her alive. She plans to write to both of their families when she’s ready. She has been gathering the courage for it, the way you gather yourself before something that matters deeply.

In the meantime, she is giving back in every way she can. She is volunteering with Donate Life Connecticut events. She has signed up for the walk. She is working toward the Dragon Boat race. And she is returning to the Institute of Living — full time now — to the clients and colleagues who once said goodbye and then watched, astonished, as she walked back through the door.

The Full Circle

Donate Life Connecticut’s Marketing Director, Barb Doyle, spent the first chapter of her career as an occupational therapist working in psychiatric rehabilitation. She knows the Institute of Living. She knows the particular kind of person it takes to do that work — the patience, the empathy, the humanistic commitment to showing up for people whose struggles are invisible to the outside world.

When she heard Melissa’s story, she said what everyone in the room was feeling:

“Through the gift of these two people who gave their organs when they could no longer take them with them, they have kept you serving the people who so desperately need you. That is a full-circle moment.”

Melissa Reynolds is a recreational therapist, a transplant recipient, a survivor, and now a voice for organ donation in Connecticut. She is proof that one decision, made by a stranger at a DMV counter, made by a family in the worst moment of their lives, can preserve something irreplaceable in this world.

You Can Make the Same Choice

Melissa’s donors registered their decision before they ever needed to. That’s how it works. You don’t know when the moment will come — for you, or for someone waiting for the call that changes everything.

If you haven’t registered as an organ, eye, and tissue donor, you can do so today at registerme.org. It takes less than two minutes.

And if Melissa’s story moved you, stay with us. This blog is just beginning. We’ll be sharing the stories of organ recipients, living donors, and donor families across Connecticut. Because every one of these stories is proof of what is possible when we choose to give.

Donate Life Connecticut is a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness of organ, eye, and tissue donation throughout Connecticut.

Do you have a story to share? We’d love to hear from you. Contact us here.