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The Emotional Tale of Receiving a Kidney
"I introduced myself and, after confirming that he was the potential donor, I asked him, with great trepidation, whether this was his final decision. He smiled reassuringly and said, 'Definitely.'" ● In this very emotional recount of events, the recipient of a kidney describes his feelings before, during and after the ordeal. A fascinating tale ● More
Beis Moshiach Magazine
2 Shvat 5771 (07.01.2011)
The Ultimate Gift
On the fifth day of Chanuka, Yisrael Konstantini celebrated his personal Chanuka miracle. At the farbrengen held at the Mercaz Chesed in Crown Heights, he told the story of how his life was saved by a kidney transplant. Among the participants at his farbrengen were Mendy Mathless, the kidney donor, and Rabbi Avrohom Lieder, director of Ahavas Chesed, who orchestrated the miracle.
When Yisrael Konstantini says the verse, “and examines kidneys and the heart,” each word has special significance to him. Twelve years ago, when he needed a heart transplant, he thought that one successful transplant was all he could ask for in life, but then the doctors told him that he needed a new kidney if he wanted to remain alive. That’s when the miracle occurred.
Yisrael told his story at a thanksgiving farbrengen that was held at the Mercaz Chesed. Sitting there were Mendy Mathless, shliach in Albany, and Rabbi Avrohom Lieder, director of Ahavas Chesed, who got the donor for him and made all the medical arrangements.
R’ Yisrael relates:
Until twelve years ago, I was a regular guy with no health problems. Then I suddenly developed heart trouble and the doctors recommended a bypass operation. Unfortunately, the surgery did not go well. My heart failed completely and I experienced clinical death. A month after the operation I was still very weak and fatigued, when people older than me went home right after the surgery and were back on their feet. After a series of tests the doctors told me that if I wanted to remain alive I needed a heart transplant.
My state of mind was abysmal, but I refused to allow myself to lose hope. A few years earlier I had started getting involved with Chabad, and the Rebbe’s brachos, through the Igros Kodesh, strengthened me a lot. Faith enabled me to endure difficult days of illness and I became very interested in the Rebbe’s sichos and the mivtzaim. I manned a tefillin stand in the pedestrian mall in Netanya and in the central bus station.
After a few months, I got the call I was waiting for. They had a heart for me. I got up from the operation with a feeling of renewal. I felt my new heart was pumping fresh energy into me.
I returned to normal life. I went back to work in a jewelry factory and continued doing mivtza tefillin a few times a week. I felt that this gave me the strength to continue. We went on to have two more children after the operation and life looked good.
Three Years of Suffering
The medicine I took to prevent my body from rejecting the heart transplant ruined my kidneys and I had to go on dialysis. I cannot describe to you how hard these treatments are. I had to do it three times a week but I suffered from it all week. I struggled to contend with the harsh side effects. It’s hard to work before the dialysis and even harder to work afterward. And in the background the doctors were warning that my delicate medical condition was endangering my heart.
At first I thought that after half a year on dialysis my condition would improve, but I slowly realized that I would have to continue these treatments until I got a kidney transplant. When the doctors told me that I needed a new kidney, I wasn’t completely surprised. I was anxious, but I thought I had been through the worst with a heart transplant and that a kidney transplant couldn’t possibly be as bad. But I quickly learned how hard it is to get a kidney. My forty-year-old sister underwent all the tests and was found to be compatible, but at the last minute, before the transplant, they saw that her blood pressure was unstable and she was deemed unsuitable.
My brother Shlomo and I consulted with the shliach in Netanya, Rabbi Menachem Volpe, and we realized that we had to widen our search because in Eretz Yisrael I would have to wait years for a donor. Organ donation is not common, whether for the sake of a mitzva or as the result of a signed organ donor card. The line is very long and there were plenty of people ahead of me. That’s when I realized what a miracle it was that I had already gotten a heart transplant.
The Man of Chesed in Crown Heights
R’ Volpe referred me to Rabbi Avrohom Lieder, director of Ahavas Chesed in New York. R’ Lieder spoke to me on the phone and said, “Come, and I will take care of you and do all I can to find you a donor.” I made the arrangements with Kupat Cholim in Israel so they would pay for some of my treatment, and I came to New York, straight to Crown Heights, to Rabbi Lieder’s house.
R’ Lieder treated me like a king. He hosted me, fed me, and took care of all my medical treatments, which included dialysis and numerous tests in preparation for a transplant. At the same time, he spread the word that we were looking for a kidney donor. Aside from myself, there are other Lubavitchers in Crown Heights who need a kidney donation.
And then I had my personal miracle. Two Lubavitchers who have type O blood like me, told R’ Lieder they were willing to have themselves tested to see if they were a match. I was thrilled by this news, though I was also apprehensive lest they not be a match or they change their minds. I prayed that all would be well.
R’ Lieder went with these two men for medical tests at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. That same day I had to be in the hospital and was surprised to meet R’ Lieder there with these two men. At the time, I simply assumed these were people R’ Lieder was helping. I didn’t associate them with my situation. Neither the doctors nor R’ Lieder think it’s a good idea for the patient to meet potential donors so there won’t be pressure on them if they change their minds.
It was a few days later, when R’ Lieder told me that R’ Mendy Mathless, shliach in Albany was a match and he was willing to donate a kidney to me, that I realized that he was one of the men I had seen in the hospital. I was examined by some doctors and they declared my heart would be able to withstand the operation.
R’ Lieder told me that Mendy is a 26 year old shliach and father of two. He was very impressed by him and saw that this was a Chassidishe person whose decision to be a donor came from genuine Ahavas Yisrael and the desire to save the life of another Jew. R’ Lieder described Mendy as a man of truth, a real Chassid.
The period of time from when R’ Lieder gave me the good news until the operation was not easy. On the one hand, I was thankful that I had found a donor; on the other hand, I was constantly plagued by the thought that he might back out.
The kidney transplant process is long and exhausting, with numerous tests for both the donor and the recipient. Every test contains the possibility that something won’t match and we would have to start over, so it’s extremely nerve wracking as you wait for the results.
Aside from the medical tests, the donors also undergo psychological testing to see whether they are strong enough to do this and that they aren’t donating an organ for unacceptable reasons.
During the waiting period, I went into shul one Friday and stood near the entrance. I suddenly saw one of the men I had seen the week before in the hospital. I had the feeling it was the unknown “Mendy” who had expressed his willingness to donate his kidney. I was very moved. I knew that according to the rules I wasn’t supposed to talk to him but he stopped near me and looked at me. Apparently he knew that I was the one who would be getting his kidney.
I couldn’t restrain myself and I motioned to him to come over. I introduced myself and, after confirming that he was the potential donor, I asked him, with great trepidation, whether this was his final decision. He smiled reassuringly and said, “Definitely.”
My entire body trembled in great emotion. I felt that a heavy stone had rolled off my heart.
A Bracha From the Rebbe With a Message
After hearing that Mendy was determined, I was much calmer but nevertheless, anxious thoughts occurred to me now and then. The day before the momentous operation I was standing in 770 and thinking about the next day. I knew all the phases I would have to undergo, starting with the exam before the operation until the recovery period. I also knew what Mendy, my good angel, would undergo. And yet I felt lost in a sea of uncertainty. What would happen at the last minute if Mendy got cold feet and backed down from his noble offer?
I felt a powerful need for the Rebbe’s bracha. There on the table was volume 20 of the Igros Kodesh. I took the volume and asked the Rebbe, from the depths of my heart, to bless me with success in the operation and opened the volume.
It opened at random to page 102 and the Rebbe’s letter said: Thank you for the good news about the successful medical treatment and may she return to her strength soon and relate good news on her own.
The letter, which was four pages long, had to do with chinuch, and at the end of it the Rebbe concluded that thinking that the health problems resulted from exertion and efforts in the school was wrong. “It is more likely to say the opposite, that the successful medical treatment and regaining her strength etc. were the result of exerting herself and efforts on behalf of the school. And if, as it seems from the letter, they are confident that giving money to tz’daka had a connection to the successful treatment, as great as the mitzva of tz’daka with money is, it is no comparison to tz’daka done with one’s body and neshama.”
At that moment I decided that after a successful operation I would get even more involved in the Rebbe’s mivtzaim and I would devote myself to being mekarev people to their Father in heaven.
Why Hashem Gave Me Two Kidneys
We went to the hospital at 5:30 in the morning. Mendy arrived with his mother and I showed up with my brother Shlomo, who had come in from Israel and with my cousin who lives in New Jersey.
In the waiting room, R’ Lieder sat with both families and spoke encouragingly to them. R’ Lieder later told me that Mendy went into the operation with utter simcha and bitachon. Two other Lubavitcher men who had also donated a kidney in the past because of the mitzva, came to encourage him.
Mendy’s mother had mixed feelings. On the one hand, she was nervous for him, but she tried to reassure herself with the knowledge that he had made the decision to do this mitzva and nobody could stand in his way. The two families became close in the waiting room.
After the successful operation I thanked Hashem for His kindness and I wanted to thank Mendy, too, for the amazing thing he did in parting with one of his kidneys to help a Jew he did not even know. I was too overwhelmed with emotion to speak to him on the phone; I couldn’t say a word.
At a certain point I felt that I could no longer hold back my feelings of gratitude. I got out of bed and looked for Mendy. I entered his room, crying, and asked everybody to leave so I could speak to him alone.
At first, I couldn’t say anything. I hugged him and cried on his shoulder. Then Mendy said, “What makes me most happy is that the doctors said the operation was a success and you are a healthy man.”
After I calmed down a little, I told Mendy that to me, he will always be the dearest person on earth, a good angel. I told him how he saved me from the pain of the dialysis treatment and a difficult, painful, limited life; how he gave me life itself. How he gave me and my family hope.
It’s hard to believe there are people like this in the world; may there be many more. Pure people, real Chassidim of the Rebbe. I can just imagine what beautiful work he does as a shliach in Albany. I can never repay him on this scale and in any case, he refuses to accept even a small gift.
Mendy modestly told me that he did it with the belief that this is what should be done and that one should always think about others, about others’ pain. He said, “I have two kidneys and I can live a full life with one. Why did Hashem give me two kidneys? So that if I see a Jew in need of a kidney to live, I can give him one of mine. Boruch Hashem, I am healthy and don’t make too much of it, I am not the first one in the world to do this. Seeing you healthy is my reward.”
Today, the fifth day of Chanuka, I am celebrating my personal Chanuka miracle that I got my life back with this kidney donation. There are people who wait years for a donor. It’s a miracle that I went to R’ Lieder, a miracle that this terrific young man was willing, and a miracle that it all went well. Now I am fulfilling the Rebbe’s instruction to relate the miracles that Hashem does for us, and in another month I will be returning home to my wife and children in Eretz Yisrael.
If you are interested in more information about donating a kidney, call Ahavas Chesed at 718-221-2424.
Esther Schwartz, Yediot America helped prepare this article.
http://www.chabad.info/index.php?url=article_en&id=21712