Kidney donation comes at perfect time for ailing pal

Published: October 11, 2009 3:00 a.m.
All his to give
Kidney donation comes at perfect time for ailing pal
Debbie Kennedy
For The Journal Gazette

Bill Hoot can’t help thinking that his decision to donate a kidney was somehow meant to be.

“I feel so blessed. It’s difficult to say just how blessed I feel,” the 63-year-old said.

That might seem like a strange statement from the donor rather than the recipient.

But Hoot’s decision to donate has made him part of a small group of people in Indiana. He is one of only 19 living kidney donors ages 50 to 64 this year, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.

It all goes back to a morning last October.
Making the decision

Hoot was reading a newspaper article about a woman hoping to find a kidney donor for her ailing husband.

“For some reason that story just stuck with me all day and that night I thought, ‘Here I am, a healthy guy, and I have the power to help improve someone’s life, to give them maybe another 15 or 20 years of health.’ I was really interested in that idea,” Hoot said.

Some of Hoot’s impetus for wanting to donate his kidney was rooted in family tragedy. Hoot’s 17-year-old son with his wife of 39 years, Ginny, died several years ago in a lightning strike, and Hoot became depressed. He was able to improve with the help of medication and therapy, and he realized that donating a kidney was his chance to help another person in need.

“He knows how grateful he is to have passed through something and come out on the other side, and he told me that he’d like to make someone else feel that good,” Ginny said. “He’s a generous person. It’s innately a part of him to think of the other person. That’s just they way he is.”

Hoot, owner of Hoot Landscaping in Huntertown for the past 35 years, was doing work for a urologist when he read the newspaper story, and he asked the physician what he thought of kidney donation. The urologist told Hoot that donating a kidney is, in effect, giving the gift of life and though it is a minimally invasive procedure, not many people do it.

According to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, 6,773 people nationwide have donated a kidney so far this year and a little more than 200,000 have donated a kidney since 1988.

More than 86,000 people nationwide are on waiting lists for a kidney with 1,015 in Indiana, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The average wait is one to two years, and about 9,000 nationwide wait more than five years to receive a healthy organ.

During that time, many patients rely on dialysis, a time-consuming procedure that can be costly and uncomfortable.

Hoot thought he might like to be one of the rare people who brave the challenges. He called the Lutheran Transplant Center and put himself on the donor list.

“People are scared about the surgery, the recovery time, what might happen if, say, they’re in a car accident and their remaining kidney is damaged,” Hoot said, “but if they only knew what I know now, I’m sure more and more people would do it.”

For example, if you donate a kidney and something happens to damage the remaining one, you’re automatically put at the top of the transplant list. He also discovered that it’s a cost-free procedure for the donor and that his decision to donate his kidney had no effect whatsoever on the cost of his insurance policy.

“It’s really so easy to give a kidney, and it can make such a huge difference in someone else’s life,” he said.
‘Like a miracle’

As Hoot underwent the rigorous screening process around Christmas, he thought the recipient would be a stranger.

“They took my blood, gave me X-rays and an EKG, and I ran on the treadmill for a while. I guess they wanted to make darn sure that what I was giving to someone else was going to be good,” he said.

About a week before the procedure, Hoot and his wife were discussing his surgery with friends. As the friends talked, Hoot learned that a mutual friend, Barbara Ayers, had a poorly functioning kidney and would need dialysis.

“I called the transplant center as soon as I could to ask if they’d found a match for my kidney yet because I thought if I could give mine to Barbara that would mean so much,” Hoot said. “When I called, Barbara was there. Barbara was in the office trying to get on the transplant list. Talk about things falling into place.”

The Hoots had known that Ayers was ill for some time but hadn’t realized their friend’s health could be drastically improved by a new kidney. Ayers had been on the University of Chicago Medical Center’s transplant list for two years when she decided to switch to the Lutheran Transplant Center list. She thought she might have to wait three more years – at least.

When the transplant center reported that Hoot’s kidney would be a good match for Ayers, everyone was thrilled.

“I couldn’t believe it was a match. I feel like it was a miracle,” Ayers said.

“I was just tickled,” Hoot said. “It was the icing on the cake.”
‘Meant to be’

Hoot’s surgery took place the day before his 63rd birthday. He says he was amazed by how painless it was and how quickly he recovered from the procedure that required only three 1-inch incisions and one 2-inch incision. The surgery was done with a robot, which a doctor controlled with the aid of 3-D color monitor.

Meanwhile, Ayers waited next door so that after Hoot’s kidney was removed, the transplant could begin.

“I got out of the hospital the next day, and the recovery was simple. I couldn’t lift heavy things for about three weeks, and there was some discomfort, but I was back on the job within a month,” Hoot said. “I was completely back to normal in no time. I really haven’t had to make any changes in my lifestyle at all.”

Hoot said he feels blessed to have donated a kidney. His decision helped save a close friend’s life, or at least drastically improve her life. He even became the subject of Carroll High School sophomore Scott Campbell’s English essay on heroes.

But saving Ayers’ life just might have saved his own.

At Hoot’s most recent follow-up appointment after the kidney surgery, his physician discovered that he was in the early stages of prostate cancer.

“I probably wouldn’t have found out I had cancer if I hadn’t given my kidney and had to go to that three-month checkup,” he said. “Now I’ve had surgery for the cancer, and I’m fine. It’s like it was all meant to be.”

Ayers agrees.

“The fact that everything worked out, that everything matched up, was so wonderful. I feel great now. I have to be a little careful because my immune system is weak, but other than that, I feel really good, and it really is amazing what Bill did for me and my family,” she said. “He changed my life.”

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