‘You are also allowed to move forward and you are allowed to live again’
Louise Schiffmacher knows what it means to be able to continue living thanks to a transplant. Together with Henk Schiffmacher and internal medicine-nephrologist Dennis Hesslink, she talks about gratitude, donation, and the value of life.
2 oktober 2026
A lasting connection
Dennis Hesslink created the book Connection Lines. It portrays patients and their donors who got a tattoo surrounding their transplant or donation.
For the introduction of the book, he ended up with Henk Schiffmacher. In the video, Dennis talks about, among other things, two men who got a tattoo together after a kidney donation.
‘You have a lust for life’
For Henk, the story is also about what people can mean for one another. Sometimes that is something small. Sometimes it is something much bigger, like donation.
What is central to him in this is the will to live. Louise recognizes that in the small things: flowers blooming in the spring, a robin in the garden, and birds returning.
“Seize it and live.”
