A special celebration of life and love

A special celebration of life and love - 30 years!

By Denise M. Champagne, staff writer
Fairport-ER Post
Posted Mar 23, 2009 @ 09:13 AM
Perinton, N.Y. —

Louis Mascaro of Perinton and his son Marc each have one functioning kidney.

They’re both Marc’s.

Marc was 19 when he donated a kidney to his ailing father, whose health was deteriorating from a progressive renal disease he’d inherited from his father, Nate.

That was 30 years ago, and Marc, who works for a software company in South Carolina, returned home recently so the family could celebrate the anniversary together.

That included dinner at Rocky’s in Rochester, one of their favorite restaurants, with Marc’s mother, Rita, brother Anthony and his wife and son of Irondequoit, and uncle Lee and aunt Rosemary Austin of Addison, Steuben County.

“A number of times over the weekend, we were commenting on how 30 years is really amazing for a transplant and just what a special time it was that we were able to share together,” Marc said.
It’s a milestone worth celebrating, said a kidney-donation advocate.

“They are only one of a very few that I personally know of that have lasted that long,” said Mary Jones, director of development for the National Kidney Foundation Serving Upstate New York, which just celebrated World Kidney Day. “It is starting to become more common with the research that is being done and the progress that we’re making with the immunosuppressive drugs.
Donations lasting 20, 25 and 30 years are starting to become more common.”

Dialysis was barely out of its infancy and kidney transplants were still fairly rare when Louis was diagnosed. He’d been having severe back pain and went to the hospital after he started urinating blood clots. He was 21 and had just gotten married.

Marc was just a boy in the late 1960s when his grandfather Nate died from polycystic kidney disease, a condition in which cysts grow and multiply on the body’s blood-filtering organs, eventually shutting them down.

A decade later, the disease was taking a toll on his 43-year-old father, who began dialysis in 1978, learning not long after that he’d need a kidney transplant.

Marc, a former Kodak employee, and his older brother, Anthony, were the first to be tested as potential donors. Doctors wanted to make sure they didn’t have the disease too.

Anthony had the wrong blood type, and was later diagnosed with the disease, receiving a kidney from his wife. Marc was compatible and quick to offer one of his kidneys, although it meant giving up hockey, something he loved, as a precaution to protect his remaining kidney.

“For me, it wasn’t really a struggle,” Marc said. “I really thought I was doing what anybody else in my position would do. He (Louis) was not in good shape. If there was anything I could do to help, I was certainly willing to do it.”

His father was hesitant at first, aware of the risks presented to Marc.

“After many discussions, we decided to do it,” Louis said. “He (Marc) said to me — I remember the words exactly — he said, ‘You gave me life. I want to return the favor.’ It’s hard to explain. It was a good feeling, and I was overwhelmed by him. We’ve always had a close relationship and it was nice.”

Marc said other than the scar on the middle of his stomach, he wouldn’t know he has just one kidney, noting he hasn’t had to take any precautions. He even admits to not entirely giving up hockey, playing when he probably shouldn’t have when he went to Monroe Community College shortly after his 1977 graduation from Bishop Kearney High School, where he met his sweetheart, Chrissie Knittel, who would later become his wife. They were married in 1981 and lived in the Rochester area until 1999, when they moved south.

“There’s people who have called me a hero and stuff like that,” Marc said. “I don’t really see it that way. It’s certainly not about me. It’s really all about my dad and the fact that it was in God’s plan that this would work out.”

Louis, on the other hand, has had some setbacks through the years with anti-rejection drugs and unrelated health problems, but is grateful still for his son’s sacrifice.

“I’ve had my problems, but the kidney’s always stayed well,” he said. “There are no problems with the kidney function. It helped me lead a normal life. I did lead more or less a normal life. I often wish that everyone could have a successful transplantation. They’re doing a lot better today than when I started. They just need more donors.”

The Kidney Foundation’s Jones said more than 300 people in the Rochester area are awaiting such a donation. Some of them wait as long as five years and some die while waiting for an acceptable donor organ.

The local Kidney Foundation agency covers nine counties from the Pennsylvania border to Lake Ontario, including Monroe, Ontario, Wayne and Yates counties. Jones said more than 1,300 people in end-stage renal failure are receiving dialysis treatments in the Rochester community alone, noting there are 13 dialysis-treatment sites in the region, six in Monroe County.

Jones said kidney disease is at epidemic levels, mainly brought on by unhealthy lifestyles and the rise of obesity, Type II diabetes and high blood pressure.

“Kidney disease is often called the silent killer because you may not be showing symptoms until it’s too late,” she said, noting the foundation is educating people about what to look for and which questions to ask their doctors. It also sponsors evaluation programs throughout the region to screen people who have risk factors, particularly reaching out to uninsured people who often don’t seek medical help.

Polycystic kidney disease claimed the life of Marc’s aunt, Natalie Mascaro, who died in 2003. It’s also the same disease the recipient of the first documented U.S. kidney transplant had: A 44-year-old woman who received a donated kidney June 17, 1950, near Chicago.

“Organ transplantation saves lives,” said Marc. “I think those miracles happen every day when surgeons transplant organs into people that need them.”

http://www.mpnnow.com/news/x108135830/A-special-celebration-of-life-and-love