Unusual donation was a heartwarming experience

Unusual donation was a heartwarming experience

By JOE SEELIG
Highlands Today

Published: January 2, 2010

SEBRING - It's a special thing to meet people who are completely motivated or who have done something truly unselfish, caring and noble, and it's a rare privilege to get to write about them.

In 2009 I met a special lady, a Tanglewood resident with a certain kind of sparkle in her eyes. Her name is Margo Holliday, who at age 66 decided to donate her kidney to her Tanglewood neighbor, Debby Mapp, 54.

Margo told me that in 1970 she thought about donating a kidney. She was told at the time she had to pay for the expensive testing. She didn't do it.

As destiny would have it, Hurricane Katrina forcibly transplanted the Holliday family, who eventually moved to Tanglewood.

One day Margo overheard Mapp's husband Tom telling a story about his wife's three missed chances to receive kidney transplants; one from Tom who was a match but got disqualified in November of 2007, and two from cadavers, which the doctors disqualified.

Debby Mapp had lost 106 pounds and stuck faithfully to her doctor's regimen, preparing for that day when a kidney would be available.

It was then Margo decided to get tested to see if she was a match. This time the tests were covered. And she was Debby's match.

"How could you not want to do something for someone who works that hard," said Holliday.

But, one place disqualified Margo because of her age. Mapp's name was on two donor lists and Shands hospital staff decided if Margo passed all their tests, and there were tons of them, they'd perform the transplant surgery.

The surgery, on Oct. 27, was a great success and both women and both husbands came through with flying colors; although there was some talk about a visit to Hooters restaurant. If you don't know about Hooters by now, ask a friend.

Sorry guys!

Holliday ran into a complication with scar tissue that had attached to her kidney and colon, caused from a gallbladder surgery 11 years before. Her surgeon had to delicately cut her kidney from the scar tissue and her colon.

It took about 7.5 hours, and there was lots of worry and concern all around.

After a long wait, all Debby Mapp remembered was the words, "We're going to take you down to the operating room now," and, "We're going to give you a shot."

Then it was over. No more early morning visits three times a week to the dialysis center. No more being hooked up to the machine three and a half to four hours each visit.

God is good! Discovering the scar-tissue problem that day may have prevented a major health problem down the road for Margo Holliday. So, out of her unselfish act, they all believe and so do I, that God brought her an unexpected blessing.

Almost miraculously, Margo Holliday went home on Oct. 29, just a day and a half after having her kidney removed, carefully driven home by her husband Robert "Doc" Holliday.

Much like Tom, Doc is a fun guy, too, who loved a good joke. We had some laughs during the interviews; that's for sure.

Doc supported his wife's decision 100 percent.

He said he's a distant relative of the Doc Holliday of O.K. Corral fame, and he was a retired lawman, too.

Debby Mapp came home from Shands hospital a week after the surgery.

I spoke with Mapp on Tuesday and nine weeks later she is still progressing fine. Margo has made a full recovery from her surgery.

Up until the surgery, she had been on dialysis for 27 months almost to the day, she said. She had her first dialysis treatment the day after her 52 birthday and spent her 53rd birthday in the dialysis chair.

"I tell people that's 28 months too long," she said. "I called Margo on Thanksgiving Day and thanked her for giving me my life back."

Although there were frequent trips to Shands, she is gradually getting back to a normal life. Debby is even planning a trip to North Carolina and possibly Virginia in July.

While on dialysis that trip wasn't impossible, but it did mean arranging to have dialysis at unfamiliar places, with unfamiliar personnel in an unfamiliar surrounding.

It's also rare to meet a person with the determination to stick to her guns and do all that's necessary to reach a goal.

I first met Debby Mapp, then 53, and her husband Tommy around July of 2008, when wrote a story for our Sunday newspaper about dialysis and people who took an expensive medication as a routine part of the treatment.

While it is amazingly clean, it was pretty shocking the first time I went into the Fresenius Medical Care dialysis center. It was an education, too.

I'm a bit squeamish at the sight of blood and all that red blood running around in all those tubes, pumping in and out of 14 people at once in 14 dialysis chairs nearly got to me. It takes a little getting used to.

It was surreal. I interviewed Charles Guay, then 80, while he sat attached to the machine. Most dialysis patients have a shunt in their bicep where the connection is made. Guay's was in his chest, but he has since had it put in his arm.

A hemodialysis shunt, graft, or fistula provides vascular access for hemodialysis, a treatment that substitutes for the kidney, while it cleans the blood by removing wastes and excess water from the body, according to www.enotes.com .

Before, and at the conclusion of my interview, I felt a bit woozy; too much blood.

I was OK as long as I kept eye contact with Charlie.

It was then I stepped outside for some air. I met the Mapps who had just finished her treatment and were getting into their van. They were cordial and after Debby rested a while, Tom invited me to come to their home for an interview.

Mapp was hopeful and confident that she would one day receive a transplant and she was bound and determined to do all she could to comply with her doctors by losing weight and keeping her strict diet, taking her medications, and limiting her fluid intake.

As a matter of fact, even her doctor, Fabio Oliveros said she was one of the most compliant patients he ever had.

To meet two such special ladies, one totally unselfish and one completely motivated, and two loving-supportive husbands, and combining all their stories into one was really a joy and pleasure.

Highlands Today reporter Joe Seelig can be reached at 863-386-5834 or jseelig@highlandstoday.com

http://www2.highlandstoday.com/content/2010/jan/02/la-unusual-donation-was-a-heartwarming-experience/