A stranger’s kindness

Published: August 19, 2009 01:52 pm
A stranger’s kindness

Julie Bacher gave a piece of herself to someone who needed it more
By Lauren Clason/Times Sentinel intern

One day in September, Julie Bacher had a revelation.

At a routine weekly meeting in the F.C. Tucker office where she works, Bacher was listening to someone speak on an upcoming United Way campaign.

“If you can’t give of your resources, give of yourself,” the speaker said.

The very next speaker was from the Indiana Organ Procurement Organization (IOPO). It was then that it hit Bacher. One of her purposes in life was to donate a kidney.

“A voice louder than anything I’ve ever heard in my entire life said, ‘This is what you’re supposed to do,’” Bacher said.

Bacher’s own mother died of kidney disease after being on dialysis for several years, so the mission was partly a personal one. Bacher’s mother had been too old and frail for a transplant from Bacher or her siblings.

“I suppose the seed was planted back then,” Bacher said.

After getting all the paperwork and legality issues straightened out, Bacher embarked on a six-month long journey of every test imaginable. Bacher underwent everything from a mammography, a psychological evaluation and a colonoscopy to chest X-rays and “millions of blood tests.”

But Bacher had already undergone a few major surgeries for personal reasons, so the extensive tests and physical strains didn’t faze her.

“I was really prepared for the physical part, the pain and the recovery period,” she said. “What i wasn’t prepared for was the emotion that came with meeting the recipient.”

The recipient was Indianapolis resident Linda Donaldson, who had been waiting for a kidney transplant for five years. Bacher was the “perfect negative” to Donaldson, meaning her kidney could counteract the high antigens in Donaldson’s blood caused by high blood pressure. Bacher wasn’t surprised by the match.

“I knew going in there that there was one person I was supposed to be doing this for,” she said.

Donaldson, however, was blindsided when Zionsville resident Dr. Tim Taber, the chief of transplant nephrology at Indiana University Hospital in Indianapolis, told her they had found a donor.

“I was shocked,” she said. “I told Dr. Taber, ‘You’re kidding me.’ He said, ‘We actually just got someone who walked into IU and wants to give a kidney.’”

Although Bacher had up until being put under to change her mind, once she had made the commitment, she never looked back. In fact, the intensity of the process only proved how important this mission was to her. She even lost 20 pounds to meet the doctors’ standards.

“This whole time I could never lose weight for myself, but I thought, if I’m serious about this, I guess I can,” Bacher said.

IOPO estimates that one in four transplants are done with a living donor, although very few of those are good samaritan donors, where the donor has no connection to the recipient. Donaldson said her transplant was only the second good samaritan donation done at IU Hospital in the past five years.

As a result, the hospital wasn’t quite sure how to handle Bacher’s and Donaldson’s meeting. Initially the two weren’t allowed to meet, but that changed when Donaldson sent Bacher a card through the hospital staff the morning of the surgery. Two days later, the staff wheeled Bacher into Donaldson’s hospital room.

“The minute I met her I had Kleenex ready on my lap,” Bacher said. “But she just started shouting, ‘There she is! There’s my angel! Thank you so much for what you’ve done!”

Donaldson remembers the meeting the same way.

“I was ecstatic. I could hardly move or anything to hug her. I don’t know, it was just like we had known each other forever, to be quite honest,” she said. “We’re family members now. I have a part of her. I think we always will be. She’s gone through an awful lot for this. I owe her my life,” Donaldson added.

Donaldson even showed Bacher a bag of urine to illustrate how successful the surgery went.

“When you start sharing urine talk, I think you’re going to be lifelong friends,” Bacher said, laughing.

The two still communicate almost daily, although their busy schedules have so far prevented them from meeting up again. Bacher was back in the office after two weeks, and Donaldson has been doing well in follow-up doctor appointments.

Although uncommon, donating a kidney wasn’t too unordinary for Bacher, who has donated blood and platelets regularly, and who has been in the bone marrow registry for 15 years.

The prospect of future kidney problems didn’t stop Bacher either, who said she has five siblings plus her children to rely on in the event she would need a transplant. If they couldn’t use her family members, Bacher would be moved closer to the top of the waiting list since she was a voluntary donor.

“It’s too bad that more people don’t do what Julie did,” Donaldson said. “You can live perfectly fine with just one kidney. So many people would be saved.”

http://www.timessentinel.com/local/local_story_231111754.html