PKD: Man Gets Kidney Match While Brother Waits

Man Gets Kidney Match While Brother Waits
Florida Brother In Intensive Care
Reported by Carley Gordon

POSTED: 3:33 pm CDT September 21, 2009

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. -- The day is filled with doctors' appointments for Sean Hoefling. First, there's a trip to the urologist. Next, it's a pit-stop CAT scan. Then, a meet-and-greet at the dialysis center.

"It seems like we're out here every other week seeing all kinds of people getting all kinds of tests," said Hoefling. "It's like getting hit in the gut that doesn't stop hurting."

For 12 years, he has been dealing with polycystic kidney disease, or PKD -- a disease where cysts form and grow on kidneys, eventually causing them to fail. It affects 12.5 million people worldwide.

"We try really hard to keep it from the kids how sick he really is," said Sean's wife, Mary.

For more than a year, Sean and his wife have been searching for a kidney donor. A month and a half ago, just before giving up, they received a call and a match.

"I texted my wife. I was like, 'It's a done deal; it's going to happen,'" said Hoefling.

"I think I still have the call on my cell phone. It's like, 'I have good news,'" Mary said.

Hoefling's second reaction, he said, was not so good.

"It was dread that I've got to let my brother know that his ordeal is going to continue to go when I'm on the way to recovery," he said.

Hoefling's older brother Bruce lives hundreds of miles away in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He, too, suffers from PKD, but Bruce is still waiting on that call.

"Last Monday, he went to work, and he collapsed at work," Sean Hoefling said. "He had two grand mal seizures, and they had to sedate him and put him in a sleep-coma state."

Bruce Hoefling is in intensive care while Sean Hoefling is busy preparing for his December surgery. Both spend their days praying for two miracles.

"Him and I have a fishing trip planned when this is all done, and I want to go on that trip," Sean Hoefling said. "I want to look back on this with him and know that we got through it OK and we did it together."

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