University of Texas Medical Branch gives one family two operations

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UTMB gives one family two operations

From staff reports
The Daily News

Published January 14, 2009
GALVESTON — For one family in South Texas, kidney transplantation is something of a routine.

On Jan. 8, Robert Guerra, 22, made the six-hour trip from Brownsville to the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston to undergo a kidney transplant at the Texas Transplant Center. His donor would be his 24-year-old cousin, Francisco Lucio.

Guerra’s mother, Carmen, had made the same trip nearly 20 years earlier when her daughter, then 13 years old, had her own kidney transplant. Her donor was her father.

“I’ve been through this before,” Carmen said. “I wasn’t nervous. I knew my son, like my daughter before him, was in good hands.”

Robert had spent the last two years in Brownsville undergoing dialysis every night. “It was so frustrating,” he said. “I’m so excited to be done with that.”

Francisco was released from UTMB to return to his home in Matamoros, Mexico four days after his successful living donor transplant. All of Robert’s blood work indicates that the new kidney is functioning perfectly.

Nurse Suzanne Couture said the cousins’ attitudes made all the difference. “They came to UTMB with the attitude, ‘I’m ready to have this done,’” she said. “They’ve been wonderful patients.”

Robert’s doctors told him that he and Francisco could undergo the transplant procedure as soon as October 2008. However, when Hurricane Ike hit, Robert knew he would have to be patient until UTMB’s Texas Transplant Center reopened. “It was worth the wait, but I’m ready to go home now,” he said.

His was the first transplant performed at the center since it reopened Jan. 5.

Performing the surgery was a team of UTMB transplant surgeons, physicians and nurses, including Drs. Luca Cicalese, Emad Asham, Philip Thomas, Kristene Gugliuzza and Horacio Adrogue.

Cicalese, director of the Texas Transplant Center and the surgeon who performed Robert’s transplant, said the center is once again offering kidney, pancreas, liver, heart and lung transplants. He also notes that Galveston is in a different organ bank than Houston, which increases the number of organs available to Houstonians if “double-listed” at UTMB.

“We are so happy that we were able to recover so quickly after Ike and that we’re able to offer comprehensive transplant services again to patients like Robert,” Cicalese said.

Robert is looking forward to a life free of dialysis. He hopes to attend the University of Texas-Brownsville to study international business.

He remains grateful to his cousin, whose heroic decision to become a living donor made this possible. “He didn’t even talk to me about it,” Robert said of Francisco’s decision. “He just decided to do it. We’re family.”

According to information from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, nearly 83,000 people nationwide are waiting for a kidney transplant. More than 7,200 of those who are waiting live in Texas.

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