As customer withers away, hairdresser decides, 'You can have one of mine'

Published: 12.12.2008

Kidney gift is the ultimate
As customer withers away, hairdresser decides, 'You can have one of mine'
By Stephanie Innes
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

"Dale reminds me of my mom. She's my friend. All my clients are my friends. You don't want to sit and watch your friend die."
~Elizabeth Littlefield, kidney donor

They'd known each other barely six months, but as she watched her client become wan, weak and gravely ill, Marana hairdresser Elizabeth Littlefield felt she couldn't just stand by and do nothing.
Dale Charnick's kidneys were failing. So Littlefield, an outgoing single mother of two young children, made an offer.
"I have two good kidneys," she told Charnick as she styled her hair, barely missing a beat. "You can have one of mine."
It was a generous and unexpected offer. Initially, Charnick and her husband, Jesse, weren't sure what to make of it. Did Littlefield know what she was getting herself into? Would she pull out after thinking it over?
But Littlefield, 35, was true to her word. She went for a complex medical workup that included repeated tests and screenings, a meeting with a social worker, a psychological evaluation, and three days capturing her urine in a cooler to ensure proper kidney function.
Three times, she was poised for surgery that was canceled due to complications.
The fourth time, it all finally went as planned. On Nov. 11, Littlefield underwent surgery at University Medical Center to remove one of her kidneys. The kidney was placed in a cold IV solution and cleaned, then transplanted to Charnick in an adjacent operating room.
Charnick, 64, is feeling stronger already.
She was in terrible condition back in 2006 when she first mentioned needing a kidney transplant to Littlefield. Her kidneys were shutting down — a condition she believes was brought on by high blood pressure that runs in her family and is difficult to control. She was on a strict diet, spending more than 10 hours a week in dialysis and desperately trying to find a kidney match from a relative.
Littlefield and Charnick first met about three years ago when Charnick, who had recently moved to Marana from San Diego, walked into Southwest Hair Design. Though Charnick and her husband later moved from Marana to Sahuarita, she continued to make the drive to Littlefield to have her hair done.
About two years ago, Charnick's health began to decline. Littlefield said it was difficult to watch — Charnick looked waxy and gray, and lost 60 pounds. She appeared to be wasting away.
"She looked like a corpse," said Littlefield. "I couldn't stand watching her suffer. I don't think people realize how awful dialysis is. ... It has been a nightmare for this woman."
When no one in her family was deemed suitable, because of health concerns, Charnick and Jesse, her husband, resigned themselves to the fact that the ideal situation — finding a "living donor" — would not be possible.
Charnick would have to go on a national waiting list for a kidney from a deceased donor. She faced a wait of up to six years, and a risk that she wouldn't live until an organ was available.
The mortality rate for patients on the waiting list is about 6 percent per year, which means about one-third of potential kidney recipients on the deceased-donor waiting list die before their name comes up, said Dr. Rainer Gruessner, chairman of the University of Arizona's department of surgery and chief of abdominal transplant.
When Littlefield volunteered to be a donor, Charnick was heartened, but cautious.
"You know, sometimes people say things to be kind," Charnick said. "I waited for a week before I called. When I did, Elizabeth said she'd been waiting for me to call."
Though Littlefield's family worried about the procedure — her mother was scared she'd die during the anesthesia — Littlefield said she was never nervous or scared.
"Dale reminds me of my mom. She's my friend. All my clients are my friends. You don't want to sit and watch your friend die," she said. "There was no contemplation. You know you have the ability and you just do it."
And so she did.
Littlefield went home the day after the surgery and has no lingering effects, except for five small abdominal scars — each less than an inch long — that mark the "ports" doctors used for the laparoscopic surgery. Laparoscopy, also known as "keyhole surgery," is minimally invasive and involves the surgeon making a small incision close to the bellybutton.
The kidney is removed through the central incision. Through one of the other openings, a special camera called a laparoscope is used to produce an inside view of the abdominal cavity. Surgeons use the laparoscope, which transmits a picture to a video monitor, to guide them through the surgery.
"It's really nothing," Littlefield said. "I loved the doctors. They told me every single thing they were doing."
Charnick's medical insurance covered everything, including all the pain medications and the follow-up checks.
"No one had kidney issues in my family," Littlefield said. "If we'd had a history then I'd have thought differently. But there are people living with one kidney all over the place."
In the event that Littlefield ever loses the function of her only remaining kidney, her status as a donor would put her at the top of the waiting list to receive a transplant.
While the removal of a kidney is a major operation, the risks associated with it are very low, Gruessner said.
"The risk of dying from donating a kidney is about one in 10,000," Gruessner said. "So, basically the same as you driving home tonight and being involved in a fatal car accident."
Gruessner says the risk of major complications is less than 3 percent, and a Swedish study showed the life expectancy of kidney donors is on average four years longer than for non-donors.
"We happen to have one brain, one heart, one liver. We happen to have two kidneys so that we can donate one of our kidneys," Gruessner said.
Still, it's not too often that non-family members will step forward and go through with donating a kidney. Most of the living donors Gruessner encounters are blood relatives of the recipient. About 25 to 30 percent are not related by blood but most of those are spouses, he said. It's illegal to accept any compensation in exchange for an organ, and that's part of the donor screening process.
Jesse Charnick, 65, a self-employed insurance agent, said he was afraid to believe that Littlefield's offer to help his wife would actually come to pass. He was worried every step of the way that she might reconsider.
"You just think something will happen. How can you believe it? She's a really strong woman. It takes courage to do what she did," he said.
For her part, Littlefield doesn't think of her gesture as terribly special. In the same situation, she believes most healthy, able people would have acted as she did. Also, she believes she's setting a good example for her children about the importance of helping others.
"The morning after, she looked beautiful, fantastic. I walked into the ICU and as soon as I saw her, it was so completely worth it," said Littlefield, who still gets emotional when she talks about her friend. "I'm honored I was able to help."
Charnick is similarly teary-eyed when she speaks of Littlefield. To top it off, the day after surgery Littlefield showed up in her hospital room with flowers for Charnick.
Sitting in her Sahuarita home this week alongside her husband and her poodle mix, Emmy, Charnick said she's still amazed by Littlefield's kindness.
"She saved my life," she said.
"She saved mine, too," her husband added, taking his wife's hand.
"Dale reminds me of my mom. She's my friend. All my clients are my friends. You don't want to sit and watch your friend die."
Elizabeth Littlefield, kidney donor
DID YOU KNOW
On Nov. 11, University Medical Center hit a milestone by performing its 100th abdominal transplant of the year. As of Dec. 4, the number was up to 105.
An abdominal transplant refers to the transplant of a liver, kidney or pancreas, with kidney being the most common. UMC performed 62 such transplants in 2007 and 49 in 2006.
The hospital attributes the rise in transplant surgeries to a new team of nationally recognized transplant experts, all hired by the University of Arizona within the last two years:
Abdominal transplant chief Dr. Rainer Gruessner; nephrology chief Dr. Bruce Kaplan, who is also a deputy editor of the American Journal of Transplantation; vice chief of abdominal transplantation Dr. John Renz; Dr. Thomas Boyer, who is director of the Arizona Liver Institute; and Dr. Khalid Khan, director of the UA's Pediatric Liver and Intestinal Transplantation Program.
● Contact reporter Stephanie Innes at 573-4134 or at sinnes@azstarnet.com.

http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/271345