CANDACE HARRISON'S organs may be failing her, but her sixth-grade students -- and extended Dunbarton Elementary School community -- are sticking by her every step of her journey through double transplant surgery.

Harrison will receive a kidney transplant next Tuesday. Weeks later, she will get a new pancreas. If successful, it should be the cure for her diabetes -- something she's dreamed of her whole life.

As a pre-surgery show of support yesterday, Harrison's students surprised her by joining her on her daily health walk after school, followed by an ice cream social.

Like most of what's happened over the last dozen years, Harrison never saw yesterday's celebration coming. As she rounded a bend along Birchview Drive, a screaming mob of 12-year-olds ran toward her, armed with signs, hugs and best wishes.

"We're going to walk with you," they shouted.

"Three times around?" Harrison asked, still overwhelmed by the goodwill ambassadors surrounding her.

Candace Harrison walks with her 6th-grade students yesterday after they surprised her one week before her second kidney transplant. (JAMES COOK/UNION LEADER)

As it turned out, they only made it once around the neighborhood together -- about a mile. The lure of ice cream on a warm spring day is a mighty powerful pull.

Harrison didn't mind, though.

It gave her a perfect chance to spend quality time with those who have been her strongest supporters since learning about her medical problems more than two years ago -- and the extraordinary circumstances that brought her need for a kidney donor to light.

A diabetic since childhood, Harrison was put on a waiting list when her kidney started failing more than a decade ago. Her best shot at restored health would be a live donor, doctors said. Harrison's mother, Evelyn Fletcher, intended to be that donor, but died from kidney cancer a short time later, at the age of 49.

Losing her mother motivated Harrison to find her biological father, Bruce Cornell. Cornell and Harrison's mother had a brief relationship, but never married.

Cornell went off to Vietnam, not knowing for sure if he was the father of Fletcher's baby. When he returned, he attempted to make things right. He tried to contact Fletcher, but learned she had married someone else. Cornell moved on, married and had a family of his own.

Candace Harrison is mobbed by members of her 6th grade class yesterday afternoon as she arrives at a surprise party in her honor in Dunbarton, one week before her second kidney transplant. (JAMES COOK/UNION LEADER)

After losing her mom in 1997, Harrison finally got the nerve to contact Cornell. She only knew his name and that he lived in Manchester, not far from her. The two met and instantly recognized the physical and emotional bond between them. A short time later, Harrison's need for a kidney became critical.

Cornell didn't hesitate, donating his own kidney to his long-lost daughter.

She would learn later that it was only a matter of time before her new kidney would fail. After she switched doctors, Harrison learned she should have been placed on a waiting list for a pancreas after the kidney transplant because it's the pancreas that manufactures the insulin that destroys the kidney in a diabetic.

Fast forward to the fall of 2006. Harrison was nearing the top of the donor list for a new pancreas and was preparing herself -- and her students -- for her impending surgery. But her kidney was no longer healthy enough. Before she could get the pancreas she desperately needed, she would have to find a live kidney donor.

Neither her own sisters nor her grown daughter were eligible donors due to medical reasons. Even a parent of one of her students went for testing, but was not a suitable match. Harrison started losing heart.

She considered her options and was ready to move south after the school year. Doctors told her the wait there for a kidney might be shorter. It would mean uprooting her teenage son, then a high school freshman, at a crucial time.

Cornell couldn't bear the thought of saying goodbye, so soon after reuniting with his daughter. He made some phone calls and Harrison's plight was published in the New Hampshire Union Leader last summer, resulting in several volunteers who started the donor process.

Click on the video below to see how Candace Harrison's students surprised her:

One of those turned out to be a near-perfect match. On Tuesday, that anonymous woman donor and Harrison will undergo surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Once she recovers from that surgery, Harrison will be ready to finally receive a pancreas as soon as one becomes available.

"Two months ago I was thinking I might have to go back to plan B, moving south. It was really a stressful time. After going over all the medical information, I knew if the donor decided to back out, I'd have no choice," Harrison said.

Then the call came that changed her life, a day Harrison can't forget.

"It was March 6; I remember the day exactly because it was my mother's birthday," said Harrison. "I was in a meeting with my co-workers and I was crying as I told them they'd found a definite match. I just felt like, even though my mother didn't get to give me her own kidney before she died, she had something to do with it. It was my mother's way of letting me know she was still with me."

Anonymous donors can choose to remain anonymous, but if Harrison ever gets the chance, she knows what she would say to her donor.

"I'm not sure 'thank you' would be quite enough, but I'd start by thanking her from the bottom of my heart and then I'd let her know how precious life is to me -- how much I want to be alive and help others while I'm alive, like my students," Harrison said.

"And I would tell her that I would never have had the chance for that without her."

Moms from the Dunbarton School community are organizing meals and transportation for Harrison during her recovery. They have set up a fund to help defray costs. Donations can be made to the Candace Harrison Fund, P.O. Box 348, Goffstown, NH 03045. E-mail Kim Vaillancourt at dvkv@gsinet.net for more information.