I Hate Dialysis Message Board
Dialysis Discussion => Dialysis: News Articles => Topic started by: okarol on April 05, 2011, 11:51:17 PM
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Jim Stingl | In My Opinion
On family terms with his kidney
March 13, 2011
For all these 41 years since he received a kidney, Frank Germinaro has called the unknown donor his little angel.
Now he finally knows her name.
"It's Rosemary. We're on a first-name basis," he said.
Frank is speaking figuratively. Rosemary Ann Rolfson died March 11, 1970, and before that day was over, one of her kidneys had been transplanted into his body at Milwaukee's old County General Hospital.
The 14-year-old Waukesha girl was denied so much of life, but it's amazing to think that small kidney continues to function and live on in Frank, making him one of the longest surviving recipients of a single transplant in the world.
On Friday, he met Rosemary's family for the first time. He and his wife, Janet, who live in Kenosha, sat down for lunch at The Machine Shed restaurant in Pewaukee with Rosemary's two sisters, Rita Harasha and Rhonda Stair, and her cousin, Adele Vogel, who was very close to Rosemary and helped arrange Friday's meeting.
Frank said he felt this chapter of his life now has come full circle. Rita talked about closure for her family. Adele said she has always felt Rosemary was never really gone, and meeting Frank was validation of that. They exchanged small gifts.
Until now, Frank didn't know the identity of his donor, and Rosemary's family had no idea who received her kidney. Janet wrote to me last year asking for help identifying the donor. The Germinaros knew only that she was 14 and from Waukesha and that she died of a brain tumor.
They wanted to offer their thanks. They wanted to say how good life has turned out for them and their four children and one grandson. Frank, 62, retired last June after many years as a music teacher and school principal in Racine and Kenosha.
I spooled up microfilm of The Milwaukee Journal and read through all the death notices from that March week, looking for a child fitting the description. I found Rosemary. She had died at Waukesha Memorial Hospital on March 11. She was 14. I contacted her family and let them know Frank and Janet were hoping to meet them.
At first they were reluctant to reopen this painful chapter of their lives, especially Rosemary's mother, Dolores. Transplant stories like this have a happy side, but they also have a sad side and that's the side they suffered through.
Rosemary was a bright and happy ninth-grader who started suffering from unexplained headaches in 1969. She was hospitalized twice, the second time for surgery. She never woke up.
Rosemary's father, Charles Rolfson, was killed at age 51 in a car crash during a family vacation in northern Wisconsin in 1981. Also killed in that accident were Dolores' brother and sister-in-law.
When I talked to Dolores recently, she said she was happy to hear the kidney recipient has done so well for so long. But she couldn't bring herself to join Friday's meeting of the two families.
At the lunch, we talked a lot about Rosemary. Rhonda, who was just 5 when her sister died, had only a few fuzzy memories. Rita, who was three years younger than Rosemary, remembers her playing guitar on her bed. And eating penny candy together. And walking to school. And a toboggan she got for her last Christmas but never got to use. Adele recalled how she sneaked Rosemary's cat in a suitcase into the hospital to see her.
"It feels good to talk about it," Rita said. "And it feels good to know something positive came out of this situation."
Frank told of how he somehow survived an entire childhood with bad kidneys, how he started dialysis at age 19, and how he had a suitcase packed for months for when the call finally came about an available kidney. He also said he knew the Wisconsin woman who received Rosemary's other kidney because they had met in the hospital that day. Unfortunately, her body rejected the kidney after only two weeks. She had two other transplants and has since died.
He talked about efforts he's made over the years with the National Kidney Foundation of Wisconsin to build donor awareness and to be an advocate for patients and families.
He shared his struggle with prostate cancer the past couple years and how his tough kidney survived all that chemotherapy and radiation.
And he talked about the sense of stewardship he feels about the precious gift he received from Rosemary when he was 21 years old. He said he feels a responsibility to live life well.
"She's always here," he said, pointing toward the right side of his abdomen. "Of course, I have to sit down to pee all the time," he joked.
"She's still a little angel, and she's forever 14."
Call Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or e-mail at jstingl@journalsentinel.com
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/117866394.html
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What a lovely story!
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41 years! I want on that list.....