Village man seeks kidney for himself, 49 others

Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2009
Village man seeks kidney for himself, 49 others
State launches its first consolidated donor registry
by Sebastian Montes | Staff Writer

Randy Graham waited seven years for his first kidney transplant.

The kidney, taken from a shooting victim in Washington, D.C., lasted nearly three years, until a disease that scars and permanently impairs the organ's ability to filter out chemicals and toxins relapsed in March, he said.

That put the 46-year-old Montgomery Village resident back on dialysis, three days a week, four hours at DaVita Germantown Dialysis.

"I wouldn't wish this on nobody," he said during a recent treatment. "I had to sit in my car for another 30 minutes to an hour to get the strength to walk into my house. That's when I decided, I'm a try to take people with me."

He's on a mission to convince 50 people to donate their kidneys, called "living donors."

It oftentimes starts with his 9-year-old son Jordan waking him up early to hand out fliers at the Shady Grove, Rockville and Bethesda Metro stations. He has gathered well-wishes and prayers, but not prospects for a viable match. But that doesn't daunt him.

"If you're not a match for me; you're a match for somebody," Graham said. "There's a lot of people suffering — there's a lot of healthy people that can help."

The NephCure Foundation, which pushes for research funding for Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis and Nephrotic Syndrome, has reached some major milestones — it is coming to NIH next week to mark a $6 research million research grant. But when it comes to awareness, kidney ailments are at a disadvantage.

"It's a hard disease to market," said Henry Brehm, NephCure's executive director. "People say, ‘Oh he looks fine.' Well, the guy has no kidneys, how would you know?"

That's a big push for Natalie Benavides, executive director of Donate LifeMD, who marked Tuesday the launch of the state's first-ever consolidated donor registry. The registry, a partnership with the Motor Vehicle Administration and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, will streamline information on donors and organs so that organs get where they need to be faster.

Though donor drives have become more successful, the waiting lists are at "epidemic proportions," with 103,000 people waiting for transplant in the United States, Benavides said. Of the 2,000 on Maryland's waiting list, 915 are minorities, most of whom need kidneys and livers.

The number of organ donors in Maryland has grown in recent years to 53 percent, to nearly 2 million residents, she said. Though that's well above the national average of 34 percent, Donate LifeMD wants to add another 500,000 over the next five years.

Graham knows the odds of finding a donor. But he's determined not to wait another five years — and to bring as much awareness as he can to kidney health.

"This is just little old me, I ain't gonna let nothing get me down," he said. "If you're not a match for me, you're a match for somebody. If I get 10 people transplanted and not me, I'm not going to stop. I'm a keep going, see if I can get 10 more."

More info

The Washington Regional Transplant Community handles transplants in Montgomery, Prince George's and Charles counties, D.C. and nine jurisdictions in Northern Virginia. Check out www.beadonor.org, www.livingdonorsonline.org and www.kidneyregistry.org.

http://www.gazette.net/stories/09232009/germnew172200_32526.shtml