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Dialysis Discussion => Dialysis: News Articles => Topic started by: okarol on April 21, 2007, 08:55:42 AM
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Organ gift a matter of destiny --and life
Stranger opens heart and donates kidney
By John Keilman
Chicago Tribune staff reporter
April 21, 2007
Rhonda Penzell was just making sales call chit-chat with a new client when she mentioned that she once sold dialysis machines.
That client was a woman whose husband happened to need a kidney transplant, marking the first in a remarkable series of coincidences that led Friday to the operating rooms of Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Penzell donated one of her kidneys to Irwin Cohen, a top judo coach and former Olympian from Buffalo Grove. The gift, one of only two or three such "Good Samaritan" transplants at Northwestern each year, sealed an unlikely relationship that has made perfect strangers almost as close as family.
"I always felt like there's a reason why I'm supposed to do this," said Penzell, 50, a single mother from Glenview. "I don't know if it's because of all these coincidences that brought me here, but I feel like this is what I'm supposed to be doing."
Seven years ago, Irwin Cohen's luck seemed to have turned permanently awful. He was among the nation's best in the tough sport of judo, making the Olympic team in 1972 and later serving as its coach. His sons Aaron and R.J. became world-class competitors, too, establishing the Cohens as the sport's first family.
But as he was preparing the national team for the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney, Cohen's immense strength evaporated. He felt short of breath, his heart beat rapidly and his ankles and legs swelled with fluid.
The symptoms confounded his doctors for months until a specialist finally figured out what was wrong: Cohen had amyloidosis, a blood disease that causes proteins to accumulate in internal organs.
Chemotherapy and a transplant of Cohen's own stem cells ended the protein buildup, but the damage had been done. His kidneys failed and he had to report to a hospital three times a week for overnight dialysis, a treatment almost as exhausting as the disease.
"I just don't have the stamina to go more than 30 seconds [on the practice mat]," he said before the surgery. "Talking or screaming, getting down and working with the kids really fatigues me and I get out of breath really quick."
No one in Cohen's family was a suitable donor, so he entered the federal organ transplant database and put a profile on matchingdonors.com, a private Web site.
And then, like so many others in need of a transplant, he waited. Three times willing donors came forward but canceled because of health problems or second thoughts.
Meanwhile, Rhonda Penzell was enduring her own turbulence. The mother of two teens was going through a divorce two years ago and needed a job. She found one selling advertising for the Suburban Woman newspaper.
She'd been there about a month when she called on Scissors Edge, a Winnetka hair salon owned by Irwin Cohen's wife, Shelly. She and Shelly were kindred spirits, and the formalities of business gave way to a more personal chat.
When Penzell mentioned she had sold dialysis machines, Shelly Cohen brought up her husband's condition. That led to more discoveries.
Like Cohen, Penzell had type O blood. And once, when she was being treated for an infection, she'd been told that she apparently had three kidneys.
"Can we have one?" Shelly Cohen said, at once joking and serious.
Penzell, scrambling to establish a new life, was in no position to make that offer. But she didn't dismiss the idea, mulling it from time to time when business took her back to the salon.
Late last year she suggested Irwin Cohen as the subject for an article in Suburban Woman. The story of Cohen's near-misses touched Penzell, and she looked up his online profile.
"I have one grandchild and expect many more, and I don't know what I would do if I can't be around to be a part of their life," Cohen had written. "Aiden, my grandson, is 6 months old and makes me fight even harder to stick around so I can be a part of his life and watch him grow into the next generation of Olympians."
Penzell was in tears. She mentioned the story to her son Robbie, 18, a freshman at the University of Missouri.
"I think you should get tested, mom," he said. "It would be really cool."
Doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago confirmed that she was compatible enough with Cohen to give a transplant a good chance of success.
The tests also showed that, contrary to what she'd been told, she had only two kidneys. But neither that nor the initial worries of her daughter Jackie, 16, stifled her growing interest in donating one. She contacted Cohen, explained she was a match and arranged to meet for lunch.
As they talked, they discovered more connections. They both were Jewish, with ancestors who had come from the same corner of Eastern Europe. Cohen's parents had graduated from Chicago's Marshall High School with Penzell's mother. Cohen had had gone to high school with one of Penzell's cousins.
What's more, Penzell knew that her maiden name, Korn, had been coined by relatives after they had immigrated. She called her 86-year-old father and asked what the family's original name had been.
The answer, of course, was Cohen.
The slew of personal links made Penzell's decision easy. After passing more tests, including a psychological screening, she set the date for surgery.
On Friday morning, Dr. Joseph Leventhal made a 3-inch incision and removed one of Penzell's kidneys. Another surgeon, Dr. Jonathan Fryer, then put the organ into Cohen, completing a transplant that the hospital said went well.
As the anesthesia wore off, neither Penzell nor Cohen felt up to an interview, but both had said they expected to recover fully within a few weeks.
Freed from dialysis, Cohen said before surgery, he would be able to travel to his sons' judo matches -- including, he hopes, the Beijing Olympics next year.
Both also predicted they would remain close. Getting together probably won't be very difficult: In one last twist, Cohen's son R.J. and grandson Aiden live two blocks from Penzell.
"Literally, they've been walking by my house every single day," she said. "Isn't that crazy?"
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jkeilman@tribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0704200668apr21,1,7425991.story?page=2&coll=chi-news-hed