THE CALL: Kidney transplants save her life

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THE CALL: Kidney transplants save her life

Intelligencer Journal
Published: Apr 10, 2008
01:52 EST

By LORI VAN INGEN, Staff

For all she has been through, Crystal Zimmerman says prayers are what have given her a chance at a better — and longer — life.

In 1994, Zimmerman, of Schaefferstown, was diagnosed with systemic lupus, a disease in which the immune system fights the body.

"It turned on my kidneys," Zimmerman, who lived in the Mount Joy area in her early teens, said. "My knees and body started to swell, and I wasn't able to walk up steps."

To try to put the lupus in remission, she was given chemotherapy and steroids; however the chemotherapy didn't work, and Zimmerman spent the next two years on two different types of dialysis.

In the meantime, her name was put on a transplant waiting list at Hershey Medical Center. However, while she waited for a donor she almost died, so her doctor told her to go to University of Maryland Medical Center for a second opinion.

Doctors there told Zimmerman she should consider a transplant from her husband, Jay.

Soon Zimmerman and her husband were tested for blood type.

"We weren't really expecting anything," she said.

But when the hospital called back, they found that Jay was a match in three of the six criteria needed for him to donate one of his kidneys to his wife.

"At that point, after two years of dialysis, there was no hesitation. My response was 'How soon? Let's go tomorrow,' " Jay said.

Three weeks later on Sept. 18, 1998, they both went to Baltimore to harvest and transplant Jay's kidney.

Seven years after the transplant, the transplanted kidney began to fail.

"I began to struggle … and started suffering again," she said.

After two more years, her kidneys went down to a 10 percent function rate.

"I was weak and sick," Zimmerman said.

This time doctors at Hershey immediately placed Zimmerman on the kidney transplant list.

"I knew a match would be almost impossible because of an 80 percent antibody count — the highest possible," Zimmerman said.

Seven people — family and friends — had offered to donate their kidneys, but either their blood or kidney were not compatible.

"A four- to six-year wait was a hopeless feeling," she said.

Then the miracle call came.

•••

The Zimmermans' usually quiet dog was whimpering when the couple went to bed on Jan. 11, so the couple left their bedroom door open.

At 3:30 the next morning, Jay's cell phone rang.

"We weren't expecting a kidney, so when the call came … Jay looked at his cell phone, didn't recognize the number and went back to bed," Zimmerman said.

Soon after the Zimmermans' kitchen phone rang.

Because the couple had left their bedroom door open, they were able to hear the phone.

This time they took the call.

The voice on the other end delivered the news that would help save Zimmerman's life. A "zero mismatch" had been found.

Zero mismatches allow a person in need of a transplant to move up on the waiting list for an immediate transplant.

An 18-year-old Iowa man had died in an accident, and his kidneys were harvested and sent to Chicago, where a recipient awaited. However, the recipient was ill, and the doctors went back to the organ transplant list and found Zimmerman.

Just how important was that phone call?

Once Hershey Medical Center transplant physician Dr. Akhtar S. Khan found out a kidney was available, he only had an hour to contact the Zimmermans to let them know it was available and get back to doctors in Chicago to accept the organ.

Zimmerman knows even once she was on the gurney waiting for the transplant, something could have gone wrong. For example, a three-hour blood cross-matching test could have rejected her as a recipient.

In that case, another transplant patient was waiting at Hershey for the kidney.

It was during this testing that her son, who was staying with a friend, felt the need to pray for his mother.

"We feel it was very instrumental in what happened," she said.

After the four-hour surgery, Zimmerman awoke to a roomful of family and friends.

"They stood by us. They cared and prayed. (Their prayers) gave me a whole life to live," she said.

E-mail: lvaningen@lnpnews.com