Kidney donation anniversary

Kidney donation anniversary

By Rob Haneisen/Daily News staff
GHS
Tue Dec 11, 2007, 10:13 PM EST

She could have backed out.

She didn't really know him, didn't owe him anything and he could have found someone else just as willing, maybe.

He could have backed out.

He could have decided to keep his private life private, his head down and wait his turn.

But three years ago, things didn't go that way for Lis Averett and Earl Halstead in Framingham.

Their story began with a phone call from Alex, Earl's 16-year-old son. He was calling the Daily News, wanting a story about his dad needing a new kidney. He said he would have donated one himself if he wasn't too young. Maybe someone in the public would help save his dad? After all, his father had been a foster parent to troubled kids, coached soccer and worked at Natick Labs designing gear for soldiers in Iraq.

We get lots of phone calls at the newspaper asking for stories to be written, a need to be expressed. Some stories make it to print, have their day, and then only resurface in archive searches.

Others grow.

The story of Earl Halstead, 55, needing a kidney and Lis Averett, 38, being selected from a group of volunteers to save his life became a series of stories that eventually included other people from surrounding towns also needing help. The stories were about need: A need to educate the public about the shortage of organs for donation; the advances in medicine and donation surgery; and the rising number of people biding their time on dialysis machines until a donor is found. Sometimes that wait is too long.

When I first wrote about Earl Halstead in June 2004, the number of people waiting for organs nationwide was 83,888. That number now, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, is 98,050. The number of people needing a kidney was 57,199. It's now 73,909.

Medical experts have said the number of people needing kidneys can't keep pace with organs available. One source of blame is the rising epidemic of diabetes, obesity and other health issues. People are also living longer with illness. Another reason donations can't keep pace with the need is the number of organs from cadavers that are not donated because the person dying or their next of kin decided not to donate what had no further use. At least for the departed.

Averett came forward after reading about Halstead in the newspaper and recognizing him as a customer in her local BJ's where she worked.

Now living in Grafton and working in Leominster, she still gets asked why.

"When I explain it, I say someone needed my help and it's the same thing I've always said: If someone in my family needed help, I would hope someone would help," she said yesterday.

Hers was a deliberate act of kindness. Planned and with faith that it was the right thing to do.

Some criticized Halstead. Some said it was wrong, unethical, to ask the public to help him now when so many waited silently on lists for years. On average, more than a dozen people die each day on those lists. Others said a person should be able to take whatever steps necessary, short of paying a donor, to save their own life.

The public appeal for a donor does not always end happily. One of the people profiled by this newspaper following Earl Halstead's success was Lisa Cunningham of Ashland. She was sick, had a little boy of her own to worry about. But nobody with the correct blood type came forward. She died in May.

And sometimes there are successes after failures.

Hopedale's Lisa Dubois responded to a another story in the Daily News about donating but wasn't a match. Months later she turned out to be a match for someone else and set off a rare triple kidney swap that helped save three lives in March.

On Dec. 8, Halstead and Averett passed a three year anniversary of their operations. Their families will gather this Sunday to remember together an event that bonded them forever.

Halstead's road to recovery hasn't been exactly smooth. He's had a few setbacks and had some skin cancer removed this year - immune-suppressant drugs necessary after a transplant are likely partly to blame.

Averett said she had some pain and burning near the surgery site for months and didn't feel like she completely got her energy level back up for a year. Most donors report no side effects after 3 months.

Halstead doesn't feel like much has changed in three years in one area.

"Still the awareness isn't there," he said. "People just don't care about it until they get sick."

Which is why it is important for loved ones to communicate what they want to happen to their organs when they die. All major religions endorse organ donation. And for those who want to donate while living, there are stories everywhere on Web sites such as www.matchingdonors.com. And one can always donate anonymously by contacting any number of organ donation centers in the Boston area. Start with contacting the New England Organ Bank at www.neob.org.

A start in any of those directions can only help.

(Rob Haneisen is the metro editor of the MetroWest Daily News. He can be reached at 508-626-3882 or rhaneis@cnc.com.)

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