Long-lost dad makes plea for diabetic daughter

Long-lost dad makes plea for diabetic daughter

By CAROL ROBIDOUX
New Hampshire Union Leader Staff
July 16, 2007

MANCHESTER – When Candace Harrison needed a kidney 10 years ago, her father, Bruce Cornell, didn't hesitate.

The two had met only eight months earlier, but that didn't matter. After all the years of separation, Cornell felt a kidney was a small sacrifice for the daughter he'd quickly grown to love.

It wouldn't make up for lost time, but it should have been enough to save her life.

But a few years ago Harrison learned a post-operative lapse in treatment complicated her prognosis. Not only is her kidney failing again, but now she also needs a pancreas to survive.

Candace Harrison smiles at her father, Bruce Cornell, in the backyard of their Manchester home. Her dad donated a kidney to her 10 years ago, but now that kidney is failing.

"There are going to be people who hear this story, who have been on dialysis and waiting for five years for a kidney, who say -- what's her problem?," Cornell said. "My heart goes out to them. But I'm looking at a solution for Candace, so that it's a done deal, so that she no longer has to live with diabetes. She's suffered enough."

A diabetic since childhood, Harrison, now 41, got on a waiting list when her kidney started failing a little more than 10 years ago. Doctors said her best shot at restored health would be a live donor. Harrison's mother, Evelyn Fletcher, intended to be that donor, but she was diagnosed with and eventually died from kidney cancer at 49, in January 1997.

That part of Harrison's story is crucial. If not for losing her mother, she may never have found her father.

Cornell and Fletcher had a brief relationship in 1966, resulting in pregnancy. He recalls that when he was told the news, he couldn't accept that the baby was his. He eventually gave Fletcher money to avoid going to court, his obligation fulfilled. A short time later, unable to find a job, Cornell volunteered for the draft and headed off to war.

"After Vietnam I wanted to look (Fletcher) up. At one point before I got married, I tried to find her. I went to the house where I thought she was living and they said they didn't know who she was. Turns out it was her parents, protecting her. She was already married," Cornell said.

He decided to mention the situation to his then fiancee with the idea that, someday, Fletcher might come back looking for child support. Ultimately, that's what happened -- only it wasn't for money; it was for love.

"I always knew he was out there, but I never felt right about seeking him out. About a month after my mother died, out of the blue, something came over me," Harrison said. "I felt like it was finally OK. I figured by this time his kids were grown, I was grown, and in the back of my mind, for all those years I didn't want to meet him because I didn't want my mother to be hurt in any way," Harrison said.

Cornell agreed to the meeting.

"It's just that she was so broken up after the loss of her mother. She was in a bad way. I just thought maybe I could help in some way," he said.

Then Harrison shared some of her baby pictures with Cornell.

"She was the spitting image of my kids and my nephew. Before the meeting I told my wife we'd play it by ear. But once I saw the pictures, I knew. And then, when I brought her home to meet my wife, she was noticing all kinds of mannerisms we had in common," Cornell said. "In the end, we wasted our money on the DNA testing; it was clear."

Not long after, Candace learned her condition had worsened. She would need a kidney sooner than later.

Her doctor determined Cornell was the best option because he was the oldest of the viable donors. If her body were to reject that organ, or if she needed another transplant down the road, her sisters would still be young enough to help her.

At least that was the plan.

Two years ago, when her health insurance provider changed, she had a visit with a new physician. He wondered aloud why her pancreas hadn't been transplanted following the kidney. The practice, common these days, often cures diabetes completely because the pancreas manufactures the insulin that destroys the kidney.

"Turns out I should've been placed on a pancreas transplant list after the first surgery," Harrison said. "That was news to me."

She immediately got on a waiting list with no sense of real urgency; her kidney function was normal.

Last fall Harrison, a teacher at Dunbarton Elementary, learned she was nearing the top of the list for a pancreas. But a pre-op test showed her kidney was deteriorating. Doctors told her it could last another five years, or give out within the next few months.

There would be no pancreas transplant until she could line up a kidney donor.

Harrison's sisters were first to step up again -- along with her grown daughter, three aunts and an uncle. None were a good match, either due to age or health issues.

Delanie Brennan, whose daughters both had Harrison for a teacher, felt it was time to share her story with the school community.

"At first, Candace didn't want to let everyone know the situation. She thought it would be pretty routine, once she got the call that a pancreas was ready," Brennan said.

As word circulated, a few people from the community inquired about the donor process, including Brennan's neighbor, Debbie Urbanik, who actually went for testing.

"I learned that donation is a much more common and simple procedure than it was in the past," Urbanik said.

She also learned that her blood type --B -- is not a match for Harrison, who must have a donor with either A or O-type blood. In addition, doctors determined that Urbanik's own kidney function was below what is considered normal, ruling her out completely.

Harrison even considered a move to a southern state, after doctors said there could be a shorter wait for a kidney. But the timing was bad.

"If I'm still in same situation I'm in now come January or February -- if there doesn't seem to be any hope for me -- we'd consider moving at the end of the coming school year. My son is going to be a sophomore at Memorial, so it's a hard time for him to move," Harrison said.

And it would mean leaving her father -- Harrison has been living in an upstairs apartment at his Manchester home since her divorce.

"I'm healthy right now, but it's just what's creeping up that scares me," Harrison said. "My dream is being diabetes free."

Cornell has the same dream.

"I've seen her before, when her kidney was failing. She was so weak -- it was a lot of stress," Cornell said. "I've seen the damage it can do, damage that can't be reversed. I mostly feel helpless. If I could fix her, take away the disease so she could finally live a normal life, after all the years of suffering, I'd do it, in a heartbeat."

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