Musicians are noted for their generosity. Examples abound of musicians both famous and little known giving gifts both large and small.

  Big names from Taylor Swift and Elton John to Rihanna and Willie Nelson have donated millions to charities.

  A former bandmate of mine spent thousands to have a custom made guitar built and gave it to one of his students.

  Musicians routinely donate their time and talent for worthy causes.

  Heather Platts’s generosity went beyond donating time, talent or money.

  She donated one of her kidneys.

  Platts, who will be performing at the Riverside Hotel’s Sapphire Room on April 28, has been playing music most of her life. A native of Washington state, she majored in music composition and piano performance at the University of Idaho. A Twin Falls resident since 1996, she now writes, teaches, and performs music. 

  In 2014, searching for someone to produce an album of her material, she met Bruce Michael Miller online. Miller was a Nashville singer-songwriter and producer. She went to Nashville, he produced her record and they fell in love. So much so that Miller left his longtime home in Nashville and moved to Twin Falls, where they began performing as a duo called Crazy Love. 

  “When I got to Idaho, I wondered what there was to do here,” Miller   said. “Then I learned about the local geography and nature. There’s just something about the desert and the open spaces here. I’ve come to really love Idaho.”

  Neither of them will forget the 1,800-mile journey from Tennessee to Twin Falls.

  “We drove here from Nashville in a Subaru Outback with a U-Haul trailer and 17 guitars,” Platts said.

  A challenging journey for a person in perfect health. Miller wasn’t. He had been suffering for years from kidney disease.

  “I was into alternative medicine and was trying to stave it off with lifestyle changes,” he said. “I refused to believe that I was going to have a transplant or dialysis. I thought I could fix it.

  “When I came to Twin Falls, I found a kidney doctor. My numbers by then had started to plummet quickly. I was down to 10 percent kidney function. The doctor told me to go to a dialysis center and learn about dialysis.”

  Platts accompanied him to the appointment.

  “I was stunned to realize the gravity of the situation,” she said. “I went home and started Googling information about transplants and how to become a donor.”

  Hedging his alternative-medicine bet, Miller had already put himself on a waiting list for a kidney.

  The wait can be as long as eight years.

  So Platts started checking on whether she could be a donor.

  Bruce never asked me, and we didn’t talk about it,” she said. “But as I learned more and found that I could be a donor for him, it became obvious that it was a chance for me to save his life. … On average, 13 people a day die waiting for a kidney. I was blessed with good health. I was able to donate mine and still have  a perfectly normal life.”

  The transplant surgery was on Aug. 5, 2019 in Salt Lake City.

  Platts was in the hospital for three days, including the day of the surgery.

  It was “four weeks before I could return to work, and by six weeks I felt almost completely back to normal. Not a bad trade for saving a life!”

  She was the one who donated the kidney, but she says she received more than she gave. 

  “Initially it was a gift I was giving to Bruce, but the fact is the gift is actually mine. We all try to do good things but it’s those defining moments when we say yes to something big that we feel truly alive. It’s those defining moments that I think wake you up to the fact that life is incredibly precious. I’ve become part of the next chapter of Bruce’s life. I can say I’ve been a factor in the future of another human being. For me, that’s an incredible gift.”

  They say the gift changed both of their lives for the better. 

  “Heather not only saved my life, but I’ve changed as a result of her generosity and love,” Miller said. “I have a new sense of how precious life is, and I feel that I want to live in a way that makes me worthy of her gift by being more giving and present, by being kinder and more compassionate to others.”

  Their April 28 Crazy Love show at the Sapphire Room, with special guest Dan Costello, is titled “The Big Give.” They’ll be telling their story, playing and talking about the songs they’ve written and providing information on how to become a kidney donor.  

  “We try not to be preachy about it,” Platts said.

  Mostly, the evening will be about music. Platts is a talented pianist with a beautiful voice. Miller is first-rate guitarist and a good enough singer that he sang backups at a Paul McCartney concert in the Hollywood Bowl.

  Tickets are available at sapphireboise.com. 

  If you go, you’ll hear some good music and interesting stories.

  Who knows? You might even end up donating a kidney that saves a life.

  And getting a gift of your own.

Tim Woodward’s column appears every other Sunday in The Idaho Press and is posted on woodwardblog.com the following Mondays. Contact him at woodwardcolumn@gmail.com.

  One of my favorite  possessions for the last few weeks isn’t a material possession.

  It isn’t something worth a lot of money or a possession treasured  for its sentimental value.

  It isn’t something you’d put your hands on, unless you’re a family member or a close personal friend. 

  It’s my left arm.

  It’s surprising how we take things for granted, even body parts, until we don’t have them or can’t use them any more. 

  Last year, my left shoulder started to hurt. It didn’t seem particularly worrisome; the right shoulder and both knees had hurt in the past and gotten better. I figured the same thing would happen again.

  It didn’t. It got to the point that I couldn’t lift my arm without it hurting. Sometimes, for no better reason than a slight, seemingly harmless movement while driving or riding in a car, the pain would strike with such intensity that the resulting shriek made fellow passengers wonder if I was having a stroke.

  An MRI identified the problem as torn cartilage. 

  The doctor said it was common for old shoulder injuries to catch up with us. I may have hurt the shoulder playing football or baseball or skiing in my teens. Now it was collecting on an overdue debt.

  A steroid injection didn’t help. Physical therapy didn’t help. The only option left: surgery.

  In that I was lucky. The doctor and nurses at St. Luke’s Sports Medicine couldn’t have taken better care of me. The surgery went well; the prognosis was positive. All I had to do was wear a sling for a week, followed by physical therapy.

  The worst part wasn’t the surgery. It wasn’t the anesthetic. It wasn’t even the pain. There was so little pain from the operation that the high-powered pills the doctor prescribed weren’t necessary. 

  The worst part, hands down:  the sling. The seemingly simple act of wearing it literally kept me up nights.

  We tend to think of slings as simple pieces of cloth that tie around the neck and are wide enough at the bottom to support an injured arm, which rests comfortably against the chest. The sort of sling seen in old movies. 

  The sling prescribed for my surgery had almost nothing in common with the old-fashioned variety. It was more of a combination sling and  brace. The brace is secured with a strap around the waist and rests  against the hip. The arm rests on the brace and sticks straight out at a 90-degree angle from the elbow.

  Picture sleeping on your back with one of your arms sticking straight up all night. You can’t sleep in bed; you have to sleep sitting in a recliner.

  If you’re a back sleeper, this might be at least marginally comfortable, arm pointing straight up notwithstanding. A side sleeper, I can’t sleep more than a few minutes on my back.

  This meant that for a week I probably averaged two or three hours sleep a night. Just scooching onto the recliner and trying to get the pillow and blankets situated with one arm all but useless was a practically a gymnastics feat. It was a good thing my wife was two floors away, unable to hear the grunts, groans and increasingly colorful language. 

  Dressing oneself with an arm in a sling can be equally challenging. How, for example, do you put socks on with one hand?

  Answer:  With difficulty, accompanied by inordinate grumbling.

  How do you wash your hands with one arm in a sling?

  Answer:  Same as above.

  The sling can be removed for showering and dressing, but how do you get dressed when you can barely move one of your arms?

  Answer: Same as above, with help from spouse. 

  It was a happy day when the physician’s assistant cleared me to “wean” myself off of the sling as she put it. The weaning lasted as long as it took to get to the car, take off the sling and drive over it.

  Just kidding. I didn’t really drive over it, tempting as it was. 

  It was wonderful to get my arm back. Certain movements were forbidden, however, such as twisting a lid off of a jar. I dealt with a particularly stubborn lid by taking it to my workshop, putting it in a vise and twisting it off one-handed. It was the most use I’ve gotten out of that vise in months.

  None of this is meant to be taken as whining. I’m lucky, actually, only having to be in the sling for a week. If the shoulder tear had been in the rotator cuff rather than the cartilage, it would have been six weeks.

  And look at all the people who lose the use of an arm permanently.  Compared with that, shoulder surgery is nothing.

  With the sling no longer needed, the question was what to do with it. My first thought was a bonfire.

  It was kind of expensive, though, and who knows when it might be needed again? Prudence dictated hanging on to it; I just don’t want to see it or think about it.

  It’s resting comfortably now.

  In the attic.

Tim Woodward’s column appears every other Sunday in The Idaho Press and is posted on woodwardblogcom the following Mondays. Contact him at woodwardcolumn@gmail.com.