Joceline Perez Hernandez

Type of Donation:       Tissue Recipient

Age and Location:      26, Loma Linda, CA

Donation Date:           [NEED TO CONFIRM TRANSPLANT DATE]

Sponsor:                      

JOCELINE’S STORY

Aspiring nurse Joceline Perez Hernandez loves a good run—a sensation she compares to flying. Over time, she noticed a small stinging in her left knee but did not think much of it. However, things changed one Thanksgiving when Joceline and her family decided to go for a hike, resulting in a bad slip that caused immeasurable pain in Joceline's leg. Once she was down, she could not get up, and her father carried her to the car with her mother and three siblings by her side. After an examination, doctors confirmed that Joceline's ongoing pain was caused by a benign tumor located right below her left knee. The tumor meant no running or hiking for Joceline. She could not continue to see patients in nursing school. Her legs were no longer supporting her.



Months later, she was taken to the hospital to remove the tumor and strengthen her leg, but the damage was considerable. It was then that doctors decided that Joceline would need surgery using an osteochondral tissue graft, utilizing donated cartilage and bone tissue. These donations would help save Joceline's leg.



Joceline will tell you that she has overcome many challenges. She grew up as an undocumented American child in a low-income household. She became a first-generation college student. And receiving the gift of tissue that allowed Joceline to continue to live her life to the fullest has been the most pivotal milestone in Joceline's life so far. She found purpose and strength through her testimony as a tissue recipient, so she continued to pursue her dreams. Joceline is now the first Registered Nurse in her entire bloodline, she continues sharing her testimony to encourage others and she now knows that nothing can stop her. As Joceline learned more about OneLegacy, her incredible spirit and gratitude for tissue donation inspired us one by one. Recently, she was invited to speak at a OneLegacy general staff meeting in front of over four hundred employees, and she moved every one of them.



During her speech, Joceline shared that thanks to the gift of her donor, she can now enjoy time with her younger siblings, plan her wedding with her future husband, volunteer in church, and continue her work as a certified nurse's assistant. "No words can explain how grateful I am and how much I appreciate all your loved one has done for me in my life," Joceline writes to her donor family. "I am still recovering, but I feel like a caterpillar. I am learning to walk again, and one day, thanks to your loved one … I will be able to spread my wings and fly, just like a butterfly."