Selfless act frees kidney patients from dialysis

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Selfless act frees kidney patients from dialysis

Dennis McCarthy's column appears Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday.
Updated: 06/15/2009 06:37:48 PM PDT

This is one of those stories that touches the heart and makes so much sense you just shake your head and smile.

Harry Damon is a Michigan firefighter who wanted to honor the memory of his 24-year-old son, killed in a snowmobile accident.

Nicole Lanstrum is an Air Force intelligence officer who simply wanted to do something nice for someone else.

Last week at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, they each donated a kidney - a selfless act that started two rare transplant chains and freed six kidney patients from lives on dialysis.

Two of the recipients, Valinda Jones and Keenan Cheung are from the San Fernando Valley, as is one donor, Jeanne Cheung, Keenan's wife.

"It's all so amazing, so incredibly beautiful," said Keenan, 43, tearing up as he met Monday with the other donors and recipients at the medical center, less than a week after their operations.

They didn't know each other a week ago, but they were hugging and crying like long lost best friends.

"I haven't been that emotionally touched in a long time," said Dr. Jeffrey Veale, director of the donor exchange program at UCLA. "There wasn't a dry eye in the audience."

Here's how the chain works. It starts with an altruistic donor - someone who wants to donate a kidney out of the goodness of his or her heart.

"For me, I'm doing this to have new beginnings in my own life," said Damon, who lost his son, Nick. "If I can help create new beginnings for
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someone else, it's all the better."

The altruistic donor's kidney is transplanted into a recipient who had a donor willing to give a kidney, but was not a match.

To keep the chain going, the incompatible donor then gives a kidney to another patient who is a match.

In the Cheung's case, Jeanne wanted to donate a kidney to her husband, Keenan, who has been on dialysis for four and a half years. But she wasn't a match.

Meanwhile, Reginal Griffin of Long Beach wanted to donate one of his kidneys to his mom, Sheila Whitney, but he also wasn't a match.

Firefighter Damon, though, was a match for Whitney, whose son, Reggie, turned out to be a match for Cheung.

To "pay it forward," for her husband, Jeanne Cheung then donated one of her kidneys to Sonia Valencia of Commerce.

A good friend of Sonia's then donated one of her kidneys to a recipient in San Francisco.

"It's just such a wonderful, emotional blessing," Jeanne Cheung said Monday from her La Ca ada Flintridge home.

"I don't know why it wasn't thought of long ago. It makes so much sense."

It does make a lot of sense, Dr. Veale says. He thinks we're going to see more kidney transplant chains in the future to help the nearly 80,000 people on the kidney transplant waiting list in the United States - more than 16,000 of them living in California.

Air Force intelligence officer Lanstrum's altruistically donated kidney went to Valinda Jones, a registered nurse from Woodland Hills.

A good friend of Jones then donated a kidney which was shipped to the University of California, San Francisco, for a woman whose sister will serve as a bridge to a new chain, Veale said.

The first kidney transplant chain in the United States was led by Dr. Michael Rees at the University of Toledo in Ohio.

"So far we've had a Caucasian man give a kidney to an African-American lady whose son gave one to an Asian lady whose husband then gave a kidney to a Hispanic man," Veale said.

"They're all like fast friends now."

Like I said, it's one of those stories that makes so much sense you just shake your head and smile.

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_12596648