Retired colonel donates kidney to 10 year old girl

Posted on Mon, Mar. 02, 2009
'The right thing to do:' Retired colonel to give kidney to 10-year-old Swansea girl
BY TERI MADDOX
News-Democrat

Mike Cole and the Voss family aren't particularly close. They live on the same cul-de-sac, wave from their cars and socialize at neighborhood block parties.

Their relationship will change dramatically Friday.

Cole, 55, of Swansea, will donate one of his kidneys to 10-year-old Sabrina Voss, who has been on dialysis for a year because of kidney failure.

"It's easy for me," Cole said. "It's just the right thing to do. I asked the doctors, 'Is this life threatening to Sabrina or just an inconvenience?' And they said, 'It's life threatening,' and that's all I needed to hear."

Cole is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel who owns and manages commercial property. Sabrina is a fourth-grader at Wolf Branch Elementary School in Swansea. They've lived two doors down from each other about five years.

Cole agreed to be tested as a possible kidney donor last fall after doctors determined Sabrina's parents weren't eligible.

Steve Voss, 46, a chemical-company maintenance manager, has sleep apnea. Sharon Voss, 48, an information-technology service analyst, has high blood pressure. Their other daughter, Sierra Voss, 13, is too young to donate.

Cole not only met the medical criteria for donation; he surpassed it.

"I've never drank or smoked or anything," he said. "My bad cholesterol was ridiculously low, and my good cholesterol was ridiculously high. They literally said I had the kidneys of a 21-year-old."

Cole does 50 push-ups every morning and evening and jogs every other day.

The transplant will keep Sabrina from having to carry a beeper and wait for a cadaver kidney from an accident victim.

"I was very surprised (when Cole offered his kidney)," Sharon Voss said. "It's still hard to assimilate. But when you receive a blessing, you accept it gracefully."

Cole graduated from Belleville East High School in 1972 and earned a business degree at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. He served 30 years in the military, navigating KC-135 aerial refueling tankers that flew all over the world.

Cole was functioning as a United Nations peacekeeper in Lebanon in 1988, when he and 6,000 other peacekeepers received the Nobel Peace Prize.

"I've been to 48 countries, and I've been to every state and every continent, including Antarctica," he said during a recent visit to the Voss home.

"You've been to Antarctica?" Sabrina asked excitedly.

"I have," Cole replied, smiling.

"Did you see the penguins?" she followed.

"I did," he said.

"That's awesome!" she squealed.

Cole was inducted into the Belleville East Hall of Fame last year because of his distinguished career and Nobel Peace Prize.

Sabrina simply knows him as the man who hangs out in his garage, restoring old cars. He's working on a red and white 1957 BMW Isetta microcar.

"It looks like an egg," Cole said.

The neighbors have been getting to know each other better in the past few months amid testing, paperwork and other transplant preparations. Last week was the first time Cole heard the full story of Sabrina's illness.

It started in the fall of 2007, when she puzzled doctors with seemingly unrelated symptoms such as weight loss, nausea, fatigue and itching.

The following April, test results sent the Vosses speeding to St. Louis Children's Hospital instead of hosting their annual Easter egg hunt.

"The doctor (on the telephone) said, 'Write these numbers down and take them to the emergency room,'" Sharon Voss said. "'They'll never believe she's as sick as she is.'"

The diagnosis was chronic kidney disease, which usually results from congenital abnormality. Sabrina's kidneys weren't doing their job of filtering toxins from the blood and excreting urine.

She stays hooked up to a dialysis machine from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. every day. That keeps her from going to movies, baseball games and other places at night. Vacations are impossible.

"I don't get to have sleepovers that much and, if I do, my friends have to sleep in my sister's room," Sabrina said. "They can't sleep in my room. They might hit me or my machine."

Cole, who is divorced, has three grown children, Diana Skipper, of Collinsville, and Paul Cole and James Cole, of Belleville, and two grandchildren.

Family members had mixed feelings when they learned of his plans to donate a kidney.

"We're a little nervous (about the surgery), but we're proud of him," said James Cole, 26, owner of The Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Company in Shiloh. "It wasn't all that surprising. He's very giving in his nature, and he always has been."

Cole wants more people to know kidney donors and kidney recipients need not be related. His testing and surgery are being covered by the Voss family's insurance company.

The transplant is scheduled for 7:30 a.m. Friday at St. Louis Children's Hospital by Washington University surgeons.

"We transplant an average six kids per year," said pediatric nephrologist Dr. Anne Beck, director of the hospital's dialysis unit. "Last year, we did 18, and that was an all-time high. We usually have 12 to 15 kids on dialysis at any one time."

Cole will have a substantial scar on his side after surgery. It's become a running joke that he'll tell people it's from a shark bite.

The Vosses and other neighbors plan to treat him with TLC during recovery by delivering home-cooked meals.

"It's the greatest gift to lay down your life for a friend," Sharon Voss said. "I know Mike's a soldier, and that's what soldiers do."

People can send messages to Sabrina or get updates on her condition through a hospital Web site at
www.caringbridge.org/visit/sabrinavoss.

Contact reporter Teri Maddox at tmaddox@bnd.com or 239-2472.