Brookline resident receives a kidney from a stranger

Brookline resident receives a kidney from a stranger
By Jim Morrison
Jmorrison@wickedlocal.com
Posted Jan. 23, 2014 @ 6:00 am

Brookline, Mass.

When a new father from Quincy read that his college buddy’s next-door neighbor in Brookline was ill and in desperate need of a kidney, he did what few people would even consider. He volunteered to be tested to see if he was a match.
He was.
Ben Johnston, a 32-year-old songwriting student at Berklee College of Music, decided he would donate a major organ to a total stranger.
The man who needed the kidney was 67-year-old Dr. Ferenc "Frank" Jolesz, who was suffering from kidney failure for the second time, after his daughter, Marta Jolesz, donated one of hers to him, about seven years earlier.
"There’s a huge shortage of available organs and people are dying every day" Marta, 37, said. "The average person is on the waiting list for five to 10 years. Most people don’t have that kind of time. My dad didn’t have that kind of time."
The TAB profiled Jolesz and his efforts to find a donor via a website and Facebook last August.
"If the TAB wouldn’t have run the article, I wouldn’t have found out about it," said Johnston.
"Basically, when I first read about it, I thought, ‘Oh, he’ll have no problem finding a donor,’" Johnston said. "Then, I thought if this person was my father or my father-in-law or someone I cared about, and he didn’t find a donor, I’d probably be angry."
The idea got lodged in his mind and didn’t go away, and Johnston said he’s not sure why. He said that like everyone else, he’s seen the television commercials to sponsor children in need, and isn’t particularly moved by them.
"I even waited a few days to tell [my wife]," said Johnston. "I thought it would go away, and it didn’t."
Johnston’s wife, Heidi, is the pastor of the Faith Lutheran Church in Quincy. She had just started a new job and given birth to the couple’s son, Oliver, two months before. Heidi was not enthusiastic about her husband undergoing a major elective surgery, so she spent about a week contemplating the decision, spiritually.
"Every week I stand up in the pulpit and ask people to step outside their comfort zone and care for people in need," said Heidi. "I thought, ‘This is the opportunity that we’ve been given to do that,’ and I thought I should support Ben."
Johnston did some research and learned that most donors are back on their feet in a couple of months. Also, the hospital staff emphasized that he was free to change his mind at any stage of the testing, which took about two months.
"You can go into the operating room and change your mind, and that’s totally fine," said Johnston, "and the family knows that."
Heidi said she was with the Jolesz family while Ben and Frank were in the operating room, which was a great comfort. Ben’s surgery went very quickly and the whole thing went a little over half as long as the surgeons predicted.
"The kidney started perfusing [taking in blood] instantly," said Heidi. "We were hugging and crying at Brigham and Women’s. That was incredible. That certainly bonds you. The daughters were in Ben’s hospital [room] rubbing his head and feet.
Dr. Jolesz wasn’t up to a face-to-face interview, and the immunosuppressant drugs he takes means he has to be careful about exposing himself to too many people, but he wrote in an email that he’s feeling much better.
"Ben gave me the gift of life, something that I almost lost," Jolesz wrote. "Words are not enough to express my gratitude for Ben and Heidi’s selfless act of helping me. My hope is that what they did for me will motivate others to help those in need."
Ben served two tours of duty in Iraq when he was an officer in the Army. His job was constructing bridges and other kinds of road construction. He said that he felt ambivalent about his work and the war in general, but donating a kidney was something he’d do again if he could.
It’s now two months after the operation and Ben said that except for the occasional pain at the incision, "I’m pretty much back to normal, and to me, that’s such a small amount of time to give someone a new lease on life. I would do it again."
The whole experience is great material for a songwriter, but the first verse of the song Ben is writing about the experience, tentatively titled, "Goodbye, Dear Kidney," might not be what you’d expect:
After a third of a century, you up and left me
Jumped right in to some other man
All my scars are still healing, and I've got the feeling
I won't be seeing you again
You left a hole deep within in me, and I'm just beginning
To fill up the space the best that I can
And though sometimes I miss you, the truth is I wish you
A long happy life with him
So goodbye, goodbye dear kidney
If I start to cry, if my tears don't dry, forgive me
It's hard to let you go, but in my heart I know
You're better off without me
So goodbye, goodbye dear kidney
"It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever done," said Johnston. "Heidi made me a scrapbook for Christmas, and I get emotional looking at the pictures and reading what his daughters wrote."
Everybody interviewed for this story said that they hope it encourages more people to donate kidneys.
"Everything aligned for Ben and he was able to give the gift of life to my father and help our family," said Marta Jolesz. "This journey has been truly unbelievable, and we feel so fortunate to find not only a donor, but a donor like Ben and his family."

Readers can learn more about kidney donation at www.lkdn.org.

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