Catching Up: AIDS patient recovering well from rare organ transplant

Catching Up: AIDS patient recovering well from rare organ transplant

By DAVID WAHLBERG | dwahlberg@madison.com | 608-252-6125 | Posted: Sunday, June 27, 2010 6:00 pm

Like most people who have received kidney transplants, Tony Cunning is glad to be off dialysis treatments.

But Cunning has a special reason: He was one of Wisconsin's first HIV-positive patients to get a life-saving organ, once thought too scarce for people with HIV.

Cunning has been hospitalized twice since his transplant at UW Hospital in September, which the State Journal wrote about in October. But the 49-year-old from Milwaukee said this month that he's feeling well, walking his dog a lot and spending time with his three grandchildren.

"It's a real life," said Cunning, who has had the AIDS virus for at least 20 years. "I'm a happy camper. I'm glad to be here."

Froedert Hospital in Milwaukee did the state's first transplant on an HIV-positive patient in December 2008. That person received a kidney. UW Hospital performed another such transplant, of a liver, in September.

Neither hospital has done any more of the procedures, spokespersons said. Nationally, more than 500 have been done, the vast majority of those within the past five years.

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