Young North Andover transplant recipient to sing with Boston Pops

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Young North Andover transplant recipient to sing with Boston Pops
By Sally Applegate / Correspondent
Fri May 08, 2009, 02:31 PM EDT

North Andover - Ariana Kershenbaum, 11, holds a microphone in her North Andover home’s music room Tuesday, doing a fantastic job singing “Ain’t No Grave,” as her sisters Ayelet, 18, and Liz, 15, provide a folksy fiddle background. This is the lively act they will bring to a very special May 30 Boston Pops concert conducted by John Williams.

“Share the Beat” is a special Boston Pops benefit concert for organ donation awareness and transplant research, and Ariana and her sisters will get to star in the show. Ariana is the grateful recipient of a kidney donation from a young adult who died in 2006. That stranger’s generous family gave Ariana the gift of life that changed her world three years ago.

During a routine exam for summer camp in 2005 doctors learned something was terribly wrong with Ariana, who had never complained of any illness or pain. At the appointment, her mother Sue told the doctor Ariana had been pale and sluggish lately, and had really bad bruises.

“They ran an extra test and the toxins in her blood were off the charts,” says her father Edward. “Her first surgery was the next day.”

Ariana’s life was transformed overnight from a normal childhood to life in the hospital. Unknown to the family, her kidneys had been completely destroyed and had to be removed. Children’s Hospital Boston began a series of surgeries to prepare her for a kidney transplant, placing her on lifesaving dialysis.

“Children’s Hospital made all the difference,” says Edward. “Everyone we came in contact with, the doctors and nurses, focused on preparing her for an eventual transplant.”

Having dialysis three times a week is not an easy thing to go through.

“I had headaches and I was really tired,” says Ariana.

Patients on dialysis are only permitted to drink two coffee cups worth of water a day, so Ariana could not do anything that would make her thirsty, and that included playing outside with her friends. She had to train herself to swallow handfuls of pills with only a sip or two of water.

No one in Ariana’s large extended family turned out to be a suitable kidney donor match, which is why this gift from a stranger was so critical.

After the kidney transplant, the change in Ariana was immediate.

“I felt better immediately when I woke up from the surgery,” says Ariana. “An hour after the transplant I drank a chocolate milkshake and a strawberry milkshake at the same time.”

Now, instead of two coffee cups of water a day, Ariana must drink two liters of assorted fluids a day and take anti-rejection medicine. She has energy now, and the family is overjoyed to see her play, and sing, and create music.

“We want the donor’s family to know what a wonderful blessing for us came out of the result of someone else’s tragedy,” says Edward. “We want them to know how much the gift of life means to us. Every day I think of the doctors and scientists who worked to create the medicine and the transplants, which started at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. It’s life-changing.”
Ariana sits at the piano in the music room Tuesday playing and singing the Beatles song “Let it Be.” She also writes her own music and lyrics.

“I’ve written about 12 songs, and a whole lot of poetry,” says Ariana, who attends fifth grade at Jewish Community Day School of Greater Boston. “Sometimes I come up with sentences that will work into a song, or I build it around a chord.”

Ariana came to the attention of the Boston Pops when her doctor, William Harmon, saw a tape her sister made of her singing “Ain’t No Grave” at Boston Harbor Scottish Fiddle Camp.  Harmon is on the committee for the “Share the Beat” concerts.

On May 30, John Williams will be conducting the Pops for the sixth annual “Share the Beat” concert, which was founded by actor Robert Redford’s son, who founded the James Redford Institute for Transplant Awareness in 1995 after receiving his own life-saving kidney transplant.

For more information on Redford’s benefit concerts, visit www.sharethebeat.org. And, to view the original tape of Ariana singing “Ain’t No Grave,” look up Ariana Kershenbaum on www.YouTube.com.

Ariana, who practices with her sisters every day after school, says she will probably be very nervous just before she goes onstage with the Pops. But she has the enthusiastic support of her entire family, all of whom can sing and play music by ear. Ayelet plays fiddle and cello with two friends in a group called “Quarter to Four,” Liz sings in an a capella group called ShenaniGanns and dad Edward plays piano, guitar and mandolin. The family sometimes sings together and harmonizes.

“We win critical acclaim when we sing ‘Happy Birthday,’” says Sue with a laugh.

Sue and Edward are dedicated to helping spread the word about the importance of becoming an organ donor.

“The doctors who take care of you have no interest in your organs,” says Sue. “They are only interested in saving you. Organ donations are only discussed when there is no hope.”

Edward wants everyone to seriously consider carrying organ donor cards.

“It is absolutely the gift of life,” says Edward.

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