Newark Beth Israel nurse gives part of herself to help sick co-worker

[okarol]

Newark Beth Israel nurse gives part of herself to help sick co-worker

by Richard Khavkne/New Jersey Local News Service
Sunday March 22, 2009, 8:11 AM

Joan Lewandowski helps save lives every day.

It's part of her job at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center. But last fall the nurse went above and beyond her calling when she donated a kidney to a fellow nurse, Charlotte Santiago.

Months before, Lewandowski had noticed what looked like a dialysis shunt protruding from Santiago's arm.

Her assumption was right: Santiago had begun twice-weekly, three-hour dialysis sessions in May 2006. Six years before, Santiago, 42, was diagnosed with IgA nephropathy, a progressive autoimmune disorder that would in time cause extensive inflammation of the kidneys and, eventually, enough damage to necessitate a transplant.

"I just thought that's not quite an optimal way of living," Lewandowski, 51, said last week.

Already a registered donor, the Bayonne resident didn't need much time to decide what to do next: She'd give Santiago one of her kidneys.

"Who knows what's going to be working when I kick the bucket? Why wait until I'm dead?" she said. "I knew she would take good care of it."

The pair had been working in the hospital's catheterization laboratory together for about a year when Lewandowski approached her colleague. She asked how to be approved as a donor. Santiago, at the time also an emergency room nurse at Palisades Medical Center, at first was a little wary.

"I wasn't actively seeking a donor," she said.

She was also skeptical: Before Lewandowski, two others had approached her to offer their kidneys. For different reasons, neither went much further.

Santiago was diagnosed with the rare disease when applying for life insurance, which was denied because of the pre-existing condition. She had been on a transplant waiting list for six years.

While Santiago's breathing sometimes became labored, especially when she climbed stairs at the hospital, and she experienced post-dialysis headaches, she was mostly free of other symptoms.

The most pronounced hardship was when she was forced to cancel visits to her family, including her two daughters, in the Philippines. She went only once, relying on her mother to coordinate dialysis treatments for her while she was there.

In New Jersey, Santiago's doctor, Sadanand Palekar, said that while it unusual for kidney transplants to take place between non-family members, it is just as infrequent that a potential donor and a recipient aren't compatible.

But Lewandowski understood Santiago's reticence: "I think she thought I was one more person asking questions .¤.¤. and that I wasn't actively pursuing this."

Before long, Lewandowski was under the microscope herself. "I had tests done that I've never had done," she said. "They tested everything to make sure I was healthy enough to donate -- and that I would be healthy after (the transplant) as well."

Lewandowski prevailed soon enough, though her own family was a bit anxious at first. "They hoped I wasn't a match, because they didn't want me to go through surgery," she said. "Once it was a go, they supported me throughout the procedure."

Palekar, the program director of the renal and pancreas transplant program at Saint Barnabas Health Care System, of which Newark Beth Israel is part, said he was not surprised to hear that Lewandowski had volunteered a piece of herself.

"I've known Joan for almost 20 years," Palekar said. "She's quietly giving."

On the day of the surgery, a Thursday in late October, the two nurses met in Beth Israel's operating room waiting area. Lewandowski went in first; Santiago followed about 45 minutes later.

"And then it went from there to there -- a little slingshot," Lewandowski said, pointing to her side and then at Santiago's.

Lewandowski left the hospital the following Saturday morning and was back working at the cath lab in early January.

Santiago's sister, who lives in Texas, traveled to New Jersey to help her sister convalesce the first week. Santiago spent her second post-op week with friends in Union. A little internal fluid delayed her recovery, but she returned to work in early February.

"All the people that I see tell me I have nice color now," said the Bloomfield resident.

Palekar said Santiago would be symptom-free for up to 20 years or perhaps longer, at which point she might need another transplant. For now, he said, she is in good health and doesn't need dialysis. "She's doing well. She's gained weight -- she needed to," he said.

Santiago also has energy to spare, taking stairs with ease. "Whoa! I can do this?" she said.

She and her new kidney will be taking a trip to Hawaii later this year -- without needing to make medical arrangements.

On Thursday afternoon in the hospital's cath lab, Santiago, a 5-foot-1-inch, brown-eyed brunette, and Lewandowski, a 5-foot-8-inch, blue-eyed blonde, traded quick-witted quips. They laughed at jokes only they seemed to get, something they might not have done a year ago, before Lewandowski noticed the shunt on Santiago's arm.

-- http://www.nj.com/newark/index.ssf/2009/03/newark_beth_israel_nurse_gives.html