Mom thanks community for helping son receive kidney

Mom thanks community for helping son receive kidney

By Lauren Wicks
Monday, June 18, 2007 9:15 PM CDT

Two years ago, Brenda Pitt contacted the Suffolk News-Herald in desperation.

Her son, Brandon Barnes, had been on dialysis for 11 years and it seemed as though the only option he had left was a kidney transplant.

After applying to be on the transplant list in January of 2005, Barnes and Pitt began the long process of waiting. However, it was a process they had known well after years of dealing with Barnes' kidney failure.

"It's been a very hard journey for him," Pitt said. "He was a young man who's had this condition since he was 15."

Pitt recalled how her son, then in high school, came home with swelling in his face and joints.

"(His legs) were just, like he had an allergic reaction to something. I called the doctor and they told me to bring him right over. The doctor sent him to a kidney specialist and we found out he was going into kidney failure," she said.

That would begin Barnes' journey for the next 19 years.

For his last two years of high school, Barnes would be on medication for his kidneys. However, at 17, they found Barnes now had a blood pressure condition. His blood pressure was rising, putting his kidneys at even more danger.

Then, at 21, he went into cardiac arrest. Soon after, he was put on dialysis.

"He had his trials and tribulations, but, you know, he's got a praying grandmamma and praying mama..." Pitt said. "God wasn't through with him."

Barnes, who grew up attending East End Baptist Church, had moved back and forth from his hometown of Portsmouth to Georgia, where his father lived. The toll took a lot on Barnes, as well as his family.

"Being that he lived there, and I lived here I was the (medical) contact person for him, and I was 12 hours away, I always feared something would happen and he would be so far away," Pitt said.

Betty Whitney, Barnes' grandmother who lives in downtown Suffolk, said, "It was hard on us. We did a lot of praying and trying to keep him positive, give him support."

Over the course of 11 years, Barnes adapted life with his dialysis treatments. He traveled on weekends and would come back to Suffolk as often as he could, even planning treatments at Maryview Hospital when he was staying with his grandmother.

"He knew this was his way of life now, he accepted it for what it was," Whitney said.

But as he got older, another woman in his life carried him down a new path.

His wife, whom he married in 2006, encouraged him to undergo the long and arduous process of trying to find a kidney donor.

On top of finding a kidney match, which can be difficult enough, Barnes still had funds to raise to pay for the operation, medication and care costs if a match was found.

Trying to aid that process, Pitt reached out with her son's story to her family, church and community to help find her son a match.

Two years of ups and downs and two failed kidney matches later, Barnes finally found the kidney he needed in March. And, with all the monetary support from the Suffolk community, Barnes was able to afford being certified as a recipient at the Emory Hospital Transplant Center in Georgia, one of the nation's busiest transplant centers.

"We were just all hyped up when we got the call," Whitney remembers.

"For me, it was like I was 25 probably 30 pounds lighter," Pitt said. "It was like 'Thank you Lord.' It was thunder, lightning, all that good stuff, sunshine, rainbows. I can't be able to tell you."

Now, Barnes is flourishing in his Georgia home with his new wife and working at a local tractor trailer company.

"He was not a person that did a lot of smiling," Whitney said. "After he got that kidney, he was laughing and grinning all over the place...When you talk to him on the phone, you can feel the smile on his face."

For Pitt, she cannot thank the Suffolk community enough for their support throughout her family's battle.

"Words can never express the sincere gratitude and love we send to each and every one of you for caring, for praying, for monetary support and kindness," she wrote in a statement. "These two small words, 'thank you,' come big from the heart."

lauren.wicks@suffolknewsherald.com

http://www.suffolknewsherald.com/articles/2007/06/19/news/news4.txt