An online plea reaches a sympathetic stranger
Daughter uses Craigslist to find a kidney donor for her mom, with success By CATHLEEN F. CROWLEY, Staff writer
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First published: Monday, March 19, 2007
Adrienne Pardini searched Craigslist for a job. Instead, she saved a life.
On the online marketplace for apartments, used goods and new relationships, she stumbled across a request for a kidney donor.
"PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Help if you can," said the ad, posted by the daughter of Georgette Saiid of Brunswick. "My mother is only 44 years old and is suffering kidney failure and has just started dialysis. ... She is an absolutely amazing person and anyone that helps her would be proud to know that they've helped such a wonderful, deserving woman. I just hope that my mother can find a donor and live the beautiful life she deserves."
Pardini, a stranger who lived on the other side of Rensselaer County, answered the Saiids' call for help. Pardini had to convince the transplant team at Albany Medical Center Hospital that she wasn't crazy and wasn't receiving money to give up her kidney. They asked her over and over: Why did she want to give her healthy organ to a stranger?
Dr. David Conti, director of the abdominal organ transplant program at Albany Med, would not talk about this specific case, but said the transplant team takes extra time to investigate someone who is willing to give up an organ for someone he or she doesn't know.
"Typically, the standard and generally accepted motivation of being a live donor is to help a family member or a loved one who has a medical need," Conti said. "In circumstances when it's not a family member or a loved one or a spouse, that motivation is absent and because of that, I think we, in the field of transplantations, need to take special precautions."
Paying for an organ is illegal, though the concept of rewarding donors is under debate. South Carolina lawmakers are considering reducing prison sentences for convicts who donate an organ or bone marrow. The idea of creating a federally regulated payment system for donors also is being discussed in the transplant community, Conti said.
Albany Med, the only hospital that performs kidney transplants in the region, conducts 60 to 90 transplants a year. One-third are from living donors.
Donations from strangers are rare, Conti said.
Saiid was in her early 40s working at Samaritan Hospital and a doctor's office as a secretary when her kidney started to fail in 2005. At first, she didn't feel any different. Then as her kidneys worsened, she felt exhausted. Getting out of bed was too hard. She quit working. Her husband, Milad, and three children, now ages 25, 21 and 17, took care of her.
Saiid's doctors put her on the transplant list, and she underwent 10 hours of dialysis a day to purge toxins from her blood.
Saiid's kidneys dropped to under 5 percent of normal function. Nearly a year had passed since she had been placed on the transplant list, which includes about 250 people in the Capital Region. Donations from her large, extended Lebanese family were ruled out because kidney disease ran in the family.
Her daughter Vanessa, a 20-year-old Albany Law School student, couldn't stand watching her mom's suffering. Vanessa worked part time in a real estate office that used Craigslist to rent apartments, and in desperation, she posted the ad for a kidney.
"She is absolutely exhausted and doesn't have the energy to do anything," Vanessa wrote. "She is the most kindhearted selfless person out there. She has three kids, all under the age of 24, and should have a long life ahead of her so she can watch us grow and become the fine people that she raised us to be. Her blood type is O-negative. If you can help, PLEASE PLEASE do."
In Rensselaer, Adrienne Pardini was perusing Craigslist for a job. Pardini had recently moved to the Capital Region from Los Angeles where Craigslist is well-known. The Web site serves as a trading post for people buying and selling items. Postings are free and are categorized by location. The Albany area has its own section.
Pardini had finished sorting through the job listings and decided to find out what people were selling. She found Vanessa's ad in the subcategory "Wanted." She thought it was a joke.
But Pardini noticed that she had the same blood type as Vanessa's mother, O-negative. A day later, she felt compelled to reach out.
"Is this serious?" she wrote. Vanessa's response sparked a series of back-and-forth e-mails. Vanessa and Georgette Saiid finally met Pardini at Flavour Cafe and Lounge, a coffee shop in Troy.
Saiid is a sturdy woman with dark, smoky eyes and long, black hair that falls in loose waves down her back. Pardini, 40, is a slender woman with short, jet-black hair and pale skin. A tattoo on the back of her neck hints at the body art that hides underneath her clothes. She has 40 to 50 tattoos that tell her life story, she said.
Saiid and Pardini struck up a friendship immediately, but Pardini said she knew she wanted to donate her kidney before she entered the coffee shop. Meeting Saiid only made it easier.
Pardini had been a pediatric psychiatric nurse for 15 years and had been a foster parent in California. Doing good deeds was ingrained in her, she said.
"I knew that it could give her some quality and longevity of life." Pardini said.
They began talking over the phone and chatted like old friends. Saiid invited Pardini to her home for dinner to meet her family. She cooked a spicy Lebanese fish dish that Pardini fell in love with.
The donation process crawled along. Pardini's blood and tissue type were a near perfect match for Saiid, but convincing the hospital that her intentions were pure was more difficult.
"They kept asking are (the Saiids) forcing you? Are they giving you money?" Pardini said. "The fact that it came from Craigslist freaked them out."
Both Pardini and Saiid maintain that no money or gifts have been or will be exchanged.
Pardini says she isn't very religious but that she believes in God.
"I believe the big picture of life is to love your neighbor," she said. "Our purpose is to love one another and be kind. I really try to do that every day."
Saiid often asked Pardini if she really wanted to go through with the surgery and told her she could back out anytime.
"No matter what happens, I will love you for trying," Saiid told her.
All live donors at Albany Med are subject to a psychosocial evaluation to make sure they understand the risks of the surgery, are capable of making the decision and to ensure that there is no psychological issue in their background compelling them to do something that is not in their best interest.
With live donors who are strangers, the hospital may ask for an extra psychological evaluation, and the donor and recipient must sign an affidavit affirming that no financial incentive was offered for the organ.
Pardini passed the test. The surgery took place on Jan. 29 and was a success.
Saiid gets her blood tested four days a week at Albany Med and she takes 25 pills a day to prevent her body from rejecting the kidney. And so far, everything looks good.
Pardini warned Saiid she may have a propensity for vodka and swearing now because Pardini enjoys cosmo martinis and curses too much. She believes that it was mere chance that she saw the ad for the kidney on Craigslist.
Saiid doesn't agree.
"She came here two years ago. She came here for a reason. I think this was the reason," she said.
Pardini started a new job as an account executive at LinguaLinx shortly before the surgery and has received a promotion that will transfer her back to California. So Pardini returns home to the West Coast with a new scar, a new friend and soon, a new tattoo to tell the story of her latest good deed.
Cathleen F. Crowley can be reached at 454-5348 or by e-mail at ccrowley@timesunion.com.
Internet appeal
Adrienne Pardini saw this ad on the Craigslist Web site and felt compelled to respond:
"PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Help if you can. My mother is only 44 years old and is suffering kidney failure and has just started dialysis. Dialysis is draining and restricting. She is absolutely exhausted and doesn't have the energy to do anything. She is the most kind-hearted selfless person out there. She has 3 kids all under the age of 24 and should have a long life ahead of her so she can watch us grow and become the fine people that she raised us to be. Her blood type is O negative. If you can help PLEASE PLEASE do. You have no idea how appreciated it would be. As I sit here typing this ad I cry. She is completely healthy if it weren't for the kidney matter. She is an absolutely amazing person and anyone that helps her would be proud to know that they've helped such a wonderful, deserving woman. I just hope that my mother can find a donor and live the beautiful life she deserves."
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