A son shows unconditional love by donating a kidney to his father

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A son shows unconditional love by donating a kidney to his father
Medicine. Love turned out to be the cure.

December 28, 2008 - 9:07 PM
BY ANITA STACKHOUSE-HITE
THE PORTERVILLE RECORDER

Medically speaking, no better medicine exists than family and friends, doctors say.

Teodorico “Ted” Deleon Jr. may have already known that, but when his son donated a kidney to him, real life experience became his tutor.

The quality of Deleon’s life was compromised when it became necessary for him to administer dialysis to his system a minimum of four times a day, seven days a week, 30 minutes each time.

The treatment Deleon endured is called peritoneal dialysis.His son John Deleon’s treatment is called love.

The 24-year-old California State University, Bakersfield senior said he did not have second thoughts about donating a kidney to his father.

“I didn’t like seeing him doing the dialysis, it was heartbreaking to see,” John said. “He is my father, and he has given me a lot, and my mother too. All of my siblings were willing to do it, but my older brother had diabetes, my sister was married and pregnant, and my younger brother lived in Sacramento. The traveling back and forth would have been hard. I saw myself as the best candidate, and again, he is my father.”

The surgery, John said, took about five hours, from about 3 until about 8 p.m. His lifestyle has not changed — his father’s has.
In five days, the patient was feeling well enough to go back to his accounting job. He is very thankful “to the Lord,” he said, about the outcome.

It could have been different.

The Deleons migrated from the Philippines to San Francisco in 1993. They stayed there for three years. And then, a friend told them about Porterville.

Our first priority is our children, and the environment in San Francisco was not a good place to raise them,” Ted said. “A friend told my wife about a place in the Central Valley where you could raise your children in peace.

That place was Porterville.

Their children now grown, the Deleons decided they could enjoy a change of venue — to San Bernardino.

Ted Deleon, 58, who works as an accountant for the state of California, found out his kidney’s were failing by chance, after submitting to a physical for a new job in San Bernardino

He knew he had high blood pressure, but had no idea it was causing his kidney’s to deteriorate.

It was 2006.

“I became sick,” he said, “and it happened very sudden. I didn’t feel anything. I’d just accepted a job at San Bernardino

Accountants and took a routine physical. That’s when I found out my kidney’s were not working. The doctor told me, ‘Go immediately to the hospital or you’re going to die.’

“I was shocked, depressed, for a while. But I told myself I had to live, I had to go on. After all, I have my God to deliver me from trials and oppression.”

His wife of 30 years, Linda, was numb with the news, she said.

Linda used her fingers to wipe teardrops from the corners of her eyes while she talked about the numbness in her body when she initially heard about her husband’s illness.

“I didn’t know what to think or feel,” she said. “I told him we had to trust in the Lord.”

Ted smiled when he talked about how Linda took the news.

“Linda is a very strong woman, she can handle everything,” he said. “I praise the Lord for her. She is so very patient.”

Time to take action

On Nov. 9, 2006, he went to Sierra View District Hospital and was admitted. He was there told he needed to be on dialysis. He submitted to traditional dialysis for a couple of weeks, then, weary of the treatment, asked for an alternative, something that would allow him to go back to work.

That’s when the nephrologist suggested peritoneal dialysis, treatment that would allow for a better quality of life, not the best, but better.

More than a year passed.

“One day,” Ted said, “my son John came to me and said, ‘Dad, I want you to live more. I want you to go back to the ministry like you did in the Philippines. I’m going to give you one of my kidney’s.”

His father asked him if he was serious. His eyes misted and his voice cracked as recounted the scenario with his son, John.

“I used to pastor a church in the Philippines,” he said. “My son said, ‘You are a man of God. Where you go I will go, because you will have one of my kidney’s.

“I am so proud of him, so proud of him. He is so young, and he did not have to do that. All of my children (Neil Jasper, 29, Abigail, 25, and Daniel, 22) were willing, and that makes me feel blessed.”

Neither man has experienced any physical repercussions as a result of the surgeries — both are healthy and feeling well, they said.

That’s family.

Terry and Karen Smith proved themselves to be friends who where there when the family needed them.

Terry drove Ted to St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Los Angeles for the surgery. It was a task he was willing to take on because of his affection for Ted and his family.

The Smiths have known the Deleons for about 12 years. They met at their common place of worship and became friends.

“We heard that he was having kidney failure, and that his son was going to donate a kidney,” Terry said. “For John to offer to do what he did, and he’s so young, well, it was just amazing. I offered to help do anything, and I meant that. I’d worked on my job for two years at that time, and had never taken a day  off. I took off from my job to help him. He’s like a brother to me.”

Karen said she and her husband were not the only ones who wanted to help.

“They are just wonderful people. We almost had to fight to see who would take him,” she said, smiling, the obvious winner of the love battle among friends.

Still, the son, John, feels he got the best end of the medical goings-on. John is the one who was able to donate a kidney to the man he loves.

“He is, after all,” John said, “my father.”

-- Contact Anita Stackhouse-Hite at 784-5000, or astackhouse-hite@portervillerecorder.com.

http://www.recorderonline.com/news/teodorico_39529___article.html/medicine_father.html