Neighbour gives boss kidney

Neighbour gives boss kidney
A Murrayville woman gave a life-saving gift to a fellow civic employee.

Jean Konda-Witte

Christmas came a little early this year for Langley's Bill Flitton.
On Dec. 9, the Abbotsford city clerk received the ultimate gift - a new kidney. And the giver of the gift was one of his staff members, Kimberley Jensen, also a Langley resident.
"What better Christmas present is there?" asked Bill just 10 days after the successful surgery, as he and his wife sat in Kim's kitchen reminiscing about the last six months.
"It's prolonged my life for 25-plus years," he said. "I don't know how you thank someone for that."
Seeing her boss smiling and on the road to recovery may be thanks enough for the Langley single mother who knows all too well the devastating effects of kidney failure.
"I knew that life," she said, remembering her beloved stepfather's battle and two years of dialysis before he died in February 2009. "Dialysis took his whole life."
When Kim, the executive assistant to council, and the other staffers at Abbotsford city hall learned of Bill's kidney failure last summer, and the impending diagnosis that he would be on dialysis by the fall, she didn't hesitate.
Bill remembers the day well. He had just informed his staff that he would be away from work for several months in the fall, undergoing dialysis, when later that day, Kim came to his office and informed him she wanted to be considered as a kidney donor.
"I didn't even think a second about it," said Kim of her decision to give up a kidney. "If I could save somebody from what we went through, I wanted to do that. I didn't even second-guess it."
"I was absolutely astounded," recalls Bill. "I was dumbfounded."
Bill, 45, who found out in 1994 that he had been born with just one kidney, began experiencing kidney failure in the mid-'90s, and by 2007, his remaining kidney was functioning at just 24 per cent.
"It's very uncommon to have a perfect stranger step up and say, 'I'm prepared to give my kidney so they can have a better quality of life,'" he said, noting a relative had wanted to be a donor, but was not a match.
Kim's kidney, however, was a perfect match.
The doctors at Vancouver General Hospital said it was such a good match that they didn't want to lose the opportunity of a transplant; they wanted to do the surgery right away, before Christmas.
Kim's surgery took about four hours, and Bill's followed immediately, lasting a little more than two hours. Both are now at home recovering - living only two blocks away from each other in Murrayville - getting ready for Christmas. Both will be off work for about three months.
Kim continues to be amazed by the science of it all: "I had a kidney inside me for nearly 45 years; now it's giving someone else life," she said. "It's miraculous."
The mother of two would like to see more people step up to become donors. There needs to be more of an awareness out there for people, she said.
Both agree that this will not affect their working relationship at city hall.
" do I feel like I have a new family... yes," said Kim.
Bill acknowledged that special bond. The kidney will forever link them.
"I don't know how there couldn't be some emotional attachment to the person who's given something of themselves, literally."

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