A Stranger's Kindness: Local 700 Assistant Trustee Donates Kindey Altruistically

Feb. 15, 2011
A Stranger's Kindness: Local 700 Assistant Trustee Donates Kindey Altruistically
What kind of person donates a kidney to a total stranger?
A person like Becky Strzechowski.
"I don't think it's that big of a deal," said Strzechowski, Teamsters Local 700 Assistant Trustee. "It's a relatively easy thing to do to help someone."
Through the National Kidney Registry and Loyola University Hospital's Pay It Forward program, Strzechowski became an altruistic kidney donor – a title few people currently hold but one that those involved hope will become common as more people learn about the program.
Not Enough Beckys
Strzechowski isn't exactly sure where she heard about Loyola's Pay It Forward kidney donation program, but it intrigued her enough to attend a monthly town hall meeting in July to become more educated on the subject matter. There, she met transplant surgeon Dr. John Milner, Director of Living Donations at Loyola and National Kidney Registry (NKR) board member, who explained the program and answered her questions.
"I am someone who believed you could only donate to family members, but when I found out I could donate to a stranger, it really triggered something in me," Strzechowski said. "When I left the meeting, I thought, 'I'm in a good situation. If I'm healthy enough, I should do it.'"
"Besides," Strzechowski said, "you really don't need your second kidney."
She soon began the process to find out if she was, in fact, healthy enough to donate. After undergoing medical and psychological tests over several months, Strzechowski, 40, was deemed fit to be an altruistic donor, and her information was fed into the National Kidney Registry's innovative computer program to find a match.
"Out of 300 million people in this country, there are maybe 100 Beckys every year – that's it," Milner said. "If there were more Beckys, more donor chains could be created, there would be no waiting list and nobody would die waiting for a kidney."
There are more than 72,000 active candidates on the kidney transplant waiting list in the United States.
"It's amazing that so many people have the opportunity to save a life and don't even know it," said John T. Coli, Local 700 Trustee. "Becky realized this opportunity and took hold of it in a way that should inspire all of us."

Inspiration in Desperation
The founding idea for the National Kidney Registry came about in 2007 when New York businessman Garet Hil's daughter was diagnosed with kidney failure at age 10.
Hil wanted to donate a kidney to his daughter, but he was not a match. After a difficult and extensive donor search, his daughter received a kidney in July 2007. The process inspired Hil to find a way to organize living donor transplants to help save thousands of lives.
"Garet Hil deserves a huge thank you for what he's doing," Milner said. "He's got his heart in it for the right reasons, and it's working. It's the best system that's available in 2011."
Strzechowski said Hil's story only fueled her desire to become a donor.
"He saw a problem and found a solution. He's a regular guy who is just trying to help other people. That's what I thought was great," Strzechowski said. "My donation is what gets the attention, but there are so many people who deserve recognition: the developers who made the software, the doctors who gave me excellent care, and on down the line."
The NKR's program has facilitated 221 transplants since February 2008. Milner said Strzechowski's donation set off a chain of 19 surgeries resulting in 10 people receiving new kidneys.
Donor chains take advantage of healthy and willing but incompatible donors, and are initiated by an altruistic donor who does not have a designated recipient. One donor chain could potentially result in 36 transplants. The NKR attempts to start donor chains with all of its altruistic donors to maximize their impact.
"Becky is the altruistic donor. She's giving her kidney because she's a good person and wants to help others. Becky gets nothing in return; she only wants to help everyone else – and that makes her special," Milner said.

Pay It Forward
When Milner came to Loyola in 2006, the idea of sharing living donor organs between hospitals was unheard of. There were a few organizations that had been trying for years to find a way to facilitate transplants between centers, but the NKR was the only one that had devised a truly successful model.
"I started researching the registry and visited other centers that were already involved," Milner said. "When I returned to Loyola, almost like divine intuition, we had four altruistic donors walk in the door."
And thus, Loyola's Pay It Forward program was born. In 2010, it produced eight altruistic kidney donors – more than any other hospital in the country.
"The phrase 'pay it forward' represents a string of events that creates something bigger than the sum of its parts, and we knew that message would resonate with the public," Milner said.
Loyola, Rush and the University of Chicago are the only three Illinois medical centers that currently are NKR participants, but as knowledge and understanding of the program becomes more widespread, that number should continue to grow.
"It haunts me to know that people don't know about the registry and might be dying on dialysis with a potential donor out there," Milner said. "They need to know about this option."

Part of the Solution
Strzechowski underwent laparoscopic surgery at 4 a.m. on Jan 6, 2011, to have her left kidney removed. About eight hours later, the kidney was transplanted into the awaiting recipient at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey. From there, the chain continued to St. Barnabas Hospital in Bronx, N.Y.; Baystate Hospital in Springfield, Mass.; Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut; and Cornell University Hospital in Ithaca, N.Y.
Two days after her surgery, Strzechowski was back at home. Two weeks later, she returned to work at Local 700.
"I'm shocked at how well the recovery has gone," she said. "When I was learning about the process, they prepared me that it could take up to six weeks to recover. Every individual is different, but for me, it's been much quicker. Besides that first night, when I had some pretty horrible nausea, it's really been relatively smooth and pain-free."
Milner said it's important to understand the risks involved with donating a kidney, and he makes every effort to educate potential donors before they make a commitment.
"These are very strong-willed individuals who understand there is some risk, but they still want to be part of the solution," Milner said. "It's because of people like Becky that I look forward to coming to work every day. People like Becky show you the goodness of humanity; they lift everyone around them. It's been a great honor to know Becky and work with her."
But Strzechowski insists her decision to donate was "no big deal."
"I don't think this is something heroic that I did. I think the program is really neat, the way they're moving the medicine forward and trying to solve the problem by reaching out to living donors," Strzechowski said. "I feel fortunate to be on this side of the donation because in a couple weeks my life just goes back to normal. But really, what I did is not anything amazing."

http://www.teamsterslocal700.com/news/news2011/021511_KidneyDonation.html