Giving back to Dad

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Sunday, May 3, 2009 , 12:00 a.m.
Giving back to Dad
Fullers in Cleveland, Ohio, for kidney transplant

By: Ward Gossett

An ordeal from the past isn’t keeping Ryan Fuller from returning to the hospital. Love for his father saw to that.

Fuller had his fill of hospitals when knee surgery a couple of years ago resulted in an infection that prompted three more procedures for the former Soddy-Daisy High School wrestler.

Tuesday he will donate a kidney to his father, longtime Soddy-Daisy wrestling assistant Trevor Fuller, at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio.

“I love my dad,” Ryan said. “He has always been there for me, whether it was wrestling or school work or anything where I needed his support.”

Trevor has been on dialysis for more than two years due to a condition known as AIG nephropathy — in layman’s terms, kidney failure.

“It has been a hard life for him, balancing school with being a wrestling coach, a father and a husband,” Ryan said. “This is a way to repay him for all he has done for me.”

Trevor is hooked up to a dialysis unit in his home for nine hours each night. In addition to being plugged in from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m., he also has to perform at least one “recharge” at some point during the day.

“We have tried to keep life as normal as possible, but it gets old quick. It rules your life,” Trevor said.

The family made a limited “bucket list” of things they wanted and could afford to do, and Trevor even packed up the dialysis unit and necessary supplies for a Bruce Springsteen concert and a duck-hunting trip to Mississippi.

Although it gave him an opportunity to live a more normal life, Trevor Fuller at first refused his son’s offer. He was going to take his chances on another donor, possibly from a cadaver list.

“He didn’t say that he didn’t want me to do it. He said I wasn’t going to do it,” Ryan said. “I had to talk him into it.”

Trevor had been turned down several places. He has a high phosphorus count, which can lead to rejection of the transplanted organ even though Ryan was a perfect match.

“I still have trouble with his decision,” Trevor said. “I have a lot of worries even though there is no real risk of him getting what I have. He’s 21 years old now, but he’s still my little boy. I’m supposed to take care of him, but he’s going to take care of me.”

Ryan was tested in December to make sure he was a match, and though he thought about and investigated life with one kidney, he never wavered.

“He was as insistent about doing it as I was not doing it,” Trevor said.

His other son, Mikey, a wrestler at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, also was a prospective donor, but Ryan wanted the responsibility.

“He said Mikey still had a chance (at competition) and that he had had his chance,” Trevor said. “There was no hesitation on his part, but it’s still tough for a father to accept that kind of decision. We’re at crunch time — it’s time to go — and it’s still scary.”

They left late last week for Cleveland.

“The Cleveland Clinic is one of the premier transplant hospitals in the country,” Trevor said. “On one of the visits we made, we met a man from South Africa who was there for a transplant.”

He and Ryan will check into the hospital Monday with surgery scheduled for Tuesday. Ryan will be hospitalized for a week or two with full recovery expected to take a month. Trevor will remain at the hospital or in a nearby residence for up to two months so doctors can monitor his physical stability and make sure his body accepts the kidney.

Although Ryan sees his act as nothing out of the ordinary, Trevor still is humbled by the sacrifice.

“I’m no more special than anybody else,” he said.

His family would disagree.

http://timesfreepress.com/news/2009/may/03/giving-back-dad/