Made for each other

Made for each other
Wife proves to be perfect kidney donor for ailing husband

By Gracie Bonds Staples
Published on: 09/24/07

Something in the way that he talked, the way he carried his 6-foot-2 inch-frame, held her attention.

Catherine Williams found herself staring at Cy Johnson more than once that fall day at Wieuca Road Baptist Church in Atlanta. A 20-something transplant from Winston-Salem, N.C., she was relatively new to the singles Sunday school class, but there was something familiar about him.

He couldn't have been much older than her, but he reminded Catherine greatly of her late grandfather and the prayer she whispered to herself at his funeral: "Lord, bring me a man just like him."

After service that day in November 1991, Cy nudged another guy away and asked Catherine out to lunch.

After a casual meal, they headed to Johnson's parents home in Sandy Springs, laughing and talking like best friends. Catherine told him her birthday was May 18.

That's my birthday, he told her.

No way, she said.

It was one of many things he told her that day. He enjoyed hunting. He had earned two black belts. He had polycystic kidney disease, a genetic disorder he inherited from his father.

Shortly after Bob Johnson married his wife, Meredith, in 1958, he applied for life insurance. It as during the required medical checkup that doctors diagnosed the deadly disease.

Doctors gave him 10 years to live and advised the couple not to have children. If they did, there was a 50 percent chance of passing the disease on to their offspring.

The Johnsons didn't give much thought to the doctor's prognosis. "We put it in God's hand," Meredith Johnson said the other day.

Dean was born in 1960, Jenny in 1961 and Cyrus in 1965.

Bob Johnson surpassed the 10-year mark and went on dialysis. It initially looked like his children landed in the right 50 percent. Dean had already gotten an all-clear but in 1977, Jenny developed a nagging pain in her right side. An ultrasound revealed she too had polycystic kidney disease. She was 16 years old.

Two years later, at age 14, the diseased was diagnosed in Cy.

But none of that mattered to Catherine. She was in love. Cy was, too. They were the perfect couple, but even they had no idea what a perfect match they really were.

Within a month of meeting, they were talking about marriage. Six months later, Cy popped the question, and on March 13, 1993, Catherine and Cy were married in the Wake Forest University Church in Winston-Salem.

Bob Johnson was beside himself. He had a new kidney. He'd witnessed all three of his children marry. By then, two of them had even given him grandchildren, though two of them inherited the disease.

Just as his father had before his death in 2004, Cy embraced life. Fresh out of Georgia Southern University, he started his own construction business. He got his pilot's license. He coached his two sons' football and baseball team.

In 2005, Cy's kidneys were no longer filtering waste. Doctors told him he should start thinking about a transplant.

Catherine wanted to be a donor, but Cy balked at the idea. He worried about her not being around for the children. As word spread about his condition and the need for a kidney, seven of his friends came forward to be tested. None of them were a match.

One day while talking to a buddy, Cy told him about his wife's offer.

You're being selfish, his friend told him. She's trying to give you a love gift.

Cy thought about that for a while and then agreed for Catherine to be tested.

That was in November. Sometime around Valentine's Day, the Marietta couple learned they were compatible.

"Doctors were blown away," Catherine said.

Dr. James O. Wells, the family's nephrologist, said 4 out of 6 genetic markers matched. "In the past two or three years, transplantation between unrelated people has become more common," he said, "primarily because of newer and better immunosuppressive drugs."

On May 17 — the day before their birthdays — doctors transplanted one of Catherine's kidneys into her husband and moved them to separate rooms to recover.

The next day Cy, 42, hobbled to his 38-year-old wife's room three doors down the hall.

Happy birthday, he told her.

To suggest a story, write Real Living, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 6455 Best Friend Road, Norcross, GA 30071; e-mail gstaples@ajc.com; or call 770-263-3621.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/living/stories/2007/09/24/real_0926.html