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Dialysis Discussion => Dialysis: News Articles => Topic started by: okarol on November 03, 2008, 01:50:04 PM
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A real lifesaver
Woman who gave her friend a kidney hopes others will consider such donations
By Barb Berggoetz
Terri Skowronek is the talkative type. Laughter comes easily to her. While she usually looks on the positive side of things, she can be a bit of a "nervous Nellie."
But when she was pushed into a Methodist Hospital operating room recently, the 44-year-old Indianapolis woman says she remained surprisingly calm. Doctors and a psychiatrist repeatedly asked if she had any second thoughts about the surgery, but no one was about to change her mind.
This elective surgery wasn't about improving her own body. She was giving up part of her body -- a kidney -- for her longtime friend, Diana Ray. Skowronek couldn't bear to idly sit by and watch Ray, who has lupus and suffers memory loss, go through endless dialysis treatments.
"She was going through all this, with seemingly no end in sight. This was the only way I could think of to help her," said Skowronek, while recovering at her Eastside home from the Sept. 12 operation.
But Skowronek isn't focusing on what she did. "I want to draw attention to the living-donor program. I don't think many people know about living donations and that you don't have to be related to the person."
Even if they're not related, donor and recipient must be in the same blood group, and the recipient can have no antibodies in the immune system that would lead to kidney rejection, said Dr. Brian Haag, Ray's transplant surgeon at Methodist.
With newer and better drugs to help overcome rejection, the number of unrelated living donors is increasing, he said. Getting a good match "is not as hard as you might think."
Still, the need is great. As of early October, the waiting list for all organ transplants in the United States topped 100,000 for the first time, including 939 in Indiana, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing in Nashville, Tenn. The kidney waiting list nationwide has increased 42 percent since 2004.
Kidneys are the most commonly needed and transplanted organs, and most living-donor transplants involve kidneys. One kidney can be removed without harm to the donor. Some transplant centers have tried transplanting parts of livers or the pancreas with less success.
The need for kidney transplants continues to grow, Haag says, because people are living long enough with chronic diseases, including diabetes and hypertension, that they develop renal failure.
Skowronek's idea of donating a kidney to her friend of 20 years came to her soon after Ray was placed on the transplant list last March. She asked Ray's boyfriend, Steve Domogalik, if any family member was a viable donor, but none was, due to health problems.
When Skowronek talked to Ray about the potential donation, Ray asked, "Are you sure you want to do this?"
The answer was "yes."
"I was just so grateful she was willing to donate, so I could get off dialysis and get a more normal life," said Ray, 43, at her Carmel home.
Ray, a soft-spoken woman who has worked as a bookkeeper, says it's hard to describe what her friend did. "It's one thing for a family member (to donate), but it's another thing for a friend to do it."
Even though their personalities differ, their friendship runs deep. They first met when Ray started working at Vanguard Services, a truck-driver leasing company where Skowronek still works as claims supervisor.
Both single and in their early 20s, they went out to lunch and dinner and took vacations together. Even after Ray left Vanguard seven years later, they talked on the phone regularly and saw each other for lunch or dinner.
Ray was diagnosed with lupus in 1993, although the chronic inflammatory disease was somewhat dormant until late 2006. She had her gall bladder removed in December, and a month later, her kidneys started to fail and the lupus affected her brain, causing symptoms and memory loss similar to those of a stroke, said her father, Larry Ray of Wanamaker.
In lupus, antibodies attack the body's tissues and organs, sometimes causing kidney failure. Ray went on dialysis, usually three days a week for several hours, in early 2007.
"I was just weak," recalled Ray, who went on total disability.
When Skowronek visited her in the hospital, she saw the toll lupus had taken on her friend, who was growing frail. "I saw (donation) as a way to boost her and help with her memory issues, if her kidney function improved."
After a blood test in April at Clarian Transplant showed she was a compatible donor, she submitted her health history, took more tests, including a CAT scan and chest X-ray, and even lost 5 more pounds so her body mass index would be the required 35 or lower. She'd already lost 30 pounds.
The operation was scheduled for Sept. 9. But Skowronek awoke from sedation to find the procedure had been delayed due to a blood-clotting problem for Ray. Three days later, the transplant was successful.
"I wasn't nervous; that's the amazing thing," Skowronek said. Her surgery was done with a few small incisions. The day after it, she was sick from the morphine, but went home two days later, sore and tired, but in less pain than she'd expected.
Ray's recovery has been tougher. She takes 30 pills a day, including anti-rejection drugs she'll take the rest of her life. Her memory is slowly returning, and she's regaining strength. Ray hopes to return to work when she's fully recovered.
Skowronek downplays what she did.
"I don't see it as that big of a sacrifice. I get to help a friend, and it was just a temporary setback for me. It was a risk worth taking."
http://www.topix.net/health/dialysis/2008/11/a-real-lifesaver