Coworker gives of herself to save life

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Coworker gives of herself to save life
Germantown woman back on the job after a successful kidney transplant

by Chris Robinson | Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Despite a relationship that measures only about a year, Jordre, 44, of Frederick, last winter provided a kidney to Plummer, 37, of Germantown, ending Plummer’s six years on a transplant waiting list.

‘‘My goal for Kim is to be frolicking in the park,” Jordre laughed during an interview at their office last week.

In addition to a kidney, Plummer’s colleagues at IQ Solutions, a health communications company, also donated their vacation and sick hours to allow for her paid recovery time. A few years earlier, company officials also organized a donation drive, but a match was not found.

Plummer, who has recently returned to work, said the generosity she has received is overwhelming, and has freed her from the exhaustive, four-hour dialysis sessions she required every other day.

‘‘Inside you’re just boiling with joy and want to scream, ‘Yes!’” she said.

The dialysis sessions would drain most of her energy, robbing her of the strength to climb the stairs multiple times to wash the laundry, make home-cooked meals, or the time she would have preferred spending with her two daughters, she said.

‘‘She’d call every 15 minutes, sometimes,” Plummer said of her youngest, 7-year-old Kara. ‘‘It was very hard.”

Plummer was diagnosed with immunoglobulin A shortly after giving birth to Kara. It is an immune-system disease that specifically attacks the kidney, and has no clear-cut cause, said Dr. Amy Lu, director of the kidney transplant program at Georgetown University Hospital.

Plummer said her mother had hoped to be a kidney donor for her, but couldn’t because she had previously taken medicine for high blood pressure.

Jordre said she couldn’t help but notice how often Plummer looked wiped out at the office because of the dialysis sessions.

‘‘Most people think dialysis makes you feel 100 percent better ... but she was a sick puppy,” Jordre said.

Once Jordre learned she could be a donor without endangering her own health, she moved forward with the support of her husband and two boys.

The duo went under the knife at Georgetown University Hospital in December, where both women’s families anxiously awaited the results, Jordre said.

‘‘I’m crying my eyes out and the anesthesiologist was asking, ‘Are you OK?’ And I was just really happy this was finally happening,” Plummer said.

Shannon, Jordre’s husband, was especially happy when they learned the kidney was a great match, she said.

‘‘Shannon was like, ‘Yes, what a great kidney,’” Jordre laughed. ‘‘He was very proud of that kidney.”

Improvements in medical science since 1995 have made living kidney donations much safer and the recovery time much shorter, Lu said.

Also, the donor’s insurance typically isn’t billed for the procedure, she said.

‘‘Nature has provided enough redundancy that people can live with just one kidney, that’s why it’s ethically and morally acceptable to donate a kidney,” she said.

Unfortunately, though, the kidney ages like a person does, and the life expectancy of a transplanted kidney is only 10 to 20 years, Lu said.

The Washington, D.C., metropolitan area has the greatest demand nationwide for fresh kidneys, Lu said. This likely is related to higher blood pressure and a greater concentration of diabetics, she said.

Meanwhile, thousands still are on organ donation waiting lists, with an average wait between 5 and 7 years, she said.

Kidneys remove waste from the production of urine, and also help regulate blood pressure, blood volume and the chemical composition of the blood.

Since receiving the transplant, Plummer and Jordre said they’ve kept in close contact.

Plummer is planning to join the Jordre clan to celebrate as Jordre’s 18-year-old, Tyler, graduates from Walkersville High School in Frederick.

‘‘My brother is dying to meet her,” Jordre said. ‘‘He said, ‘You can tell Kim she is part of our family.’”

Waiting For Life

Like Kim Plummer was, thousands in Maryland are on the waiting list for organ donations. Here’s a breakdown:

Kidney, 1,460

Liver, 447

Lung, 9

Heart, 58

Nationwide, time on a kidney waiting list could range from 3.5 to 5.5 years, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. For information, visit www.optn.org.