2016 Beth Adler-Bush, VMD

BETH ADLER-BUSH, VMD

Patellar Ligament Recipient

Age 41 ~ Hamilton, NJ

Veterinarian

Honored by rtidonorservices.org

Beth Adler-Bush of Hamilton, New Jersey, is a very active mother and veterinarian. She loves interacting with animals and enjoys going to the gym to “blow off steam.”  While decorating her house for Halloween, she fell from a ladder and landed directly on her knee, rupturing her ACL.  Beth had no idea how much of her daily routine depended on her ACL. Simple things such as dancing or working with her patients became extremely difficult.  After Beth received the patellar ligament that repaired her ACL, she immediately wrote a letter to her donor’s family, thanking them. “Somebody gave up part of his or her own knee so I could have mine back?!” she said. “I learned first-hand just how much that donation meant to a recipient.”

Beth’s Story

“From the bottom of my heart, thank you,” said Beth Adler-Bush, a patellar ligament recipient. “There are no words to truly describe how grateful I am.”

Beth Adler-Bush of Hamilton, New Jersey, is a very active mother and veterinarian. She loves interacting with animals and enjoys going to the gym to “blow off steam.”

While decorating her house for Halloween, she fell from a ladder and landed directly on her knee. A trip to the ER confirmed no broken bones. But, a trip to the orthopedist and an MRI confirmed a ruptured ACL.

She had no idea how much of her daily routine depended on her ACL. “Dancing with my 7-year-old son at his karate banquet became impossible. When Santa Clause came to my neighborhood on the fire truck, merely jogging down the driveway so I could make sure my boy got to meet him left me in a ton of pain. As a veterinarian, it became extremely difficult to kneel down to say hi to my feline patients.”

After learning she needed reconstructive surgery and that a donor’s patellar ligament would be used to reconstruct her ACL, Bush immediately knew she wanted to write a note to the donor family thanking them for her new patellar ligament.

“Somebody gave up part of his or her own knee so I could have mine back?!” she said. “I learned first-hand just how much that donation meant to a recipient.”

Bush said she never thought about how many people’s lives could be improved through becoming a tissue donor. “I had no idea that by becoming a tissue donor, I could also be that hero,” she said. “Never did I think about the people who would receive my own patellar ligaments for their own torn ACLs, the burn victims who would receive my skin for grafts and the blind who would receive my corneas so they could see again.”  Beth learned from personal experience that through donation, someone’s world can be saved.