Albertsons employee gives kidney to customer's daughter

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Albertsons employee gives kidney to customer's daughter

Joy Juedes, Staff Writer
Posted: 10/31/2010 09:20:17 PM PDT

Patty Hernandez's regular customer, Leo Schouest, seemed a little down during his weekly visit to her seafood counter at Albertsons.

"He looked really sad, I asked him if everything was OK and he said, `My daughter is sick,' " Hernandez said. "He had never told anybody she was sick."

"I went around the counter, put my hand on his shoulder and said, `I'll pray for her."'

A few weeks later, she offered her kidney.

On Oct. 18, she gave it to 25-year-old Juliana Schouest at Loma Linda University Medical Center.

"What I want to tell people is if you need a kidney, don't be afraid to ask people," said Hernandez, who lives in Yucaipa and has worked at the Redlands Albertsons about six years. "That's what I want to do, I want other people to have kidneys."

Juliana, a Redlands native and Redlands High School graduate, was diagnosed in July 2009 with end-stage kidney failure. She was on dialysis eight hours every night, according to her mother, Ellen. She made the transplant list in April.

Unless someone volunteered to donate for her, the average wait for a transplant is five to eight years, Ellen said.

Less than a week before Leo told her about his daughter, Hernandez said she felt compelled to speak with her husband, Mario, about donating a kidney. She wanted to honor Mario's brother, Hector, a Pomona elementary schoolteacher who died in May 2009 while waiting for a kidney.

"I said, `I really feel I need to donate a kidney," said Hernandez, who discovered she shared Leo's doctor at Kaiser Permanente. "He wanted to make sure I was going to be OK."
The Schouests did not meet the requirements to donate to their daughter, and others could not pursue it for different reasons, Ellen said. In July, Patty agreed to be tested at Loma Linda University Medical Center and was found to be a match. Juliana, who has type B+ blood, could receive a kidney from Hernandez, whose type O+ blood is the universal donor.

"I was not believing it until a few weeks ago - I was waiting for the other shoe to drop," said Ellen, a speech pathologist for the Redlands Unified School District. "We just hadn't had a lot of good news."

"I was surprised because they always say that doesn't always happen," said Juliana, who is working on a master's in library science from San Jose State. "If one person is tested, I wasn't convinced one person would be a match."

Hernandez said she wanted to scream. When Leo came into the store, "he gave me the biggest hug," she said.

Store director Mike Enright said Hernandez's offer did not surprise him.

"She's such a people person," said Enright, whose customers and employees have filled four poster-size pieces of paper with wishes for Hernandez, and are delivering food to her home while she recovers.

"She wears a (Finding) Nemo fish hat at work," he said. "She has such a connection to customers, a sincerity and how much she cares."

Enright said people come from Banning to see Hernandez, whose husband is a manager at the Banning Albertsons.

"I can't believe the support from my customers," Hernandez said. She said she tries to remember their names.

Both Hernandez and Schouest returned from the hospital less than a week after their surgeries. Schouest is returning to work at the Lewis Library and Technology Center in Fontana in January; Hernandez is set to return to the meat department at the end of November.

Schouest said Hernandez has "enough energy for the both of us."

"I'm really grateful - she's really sweet," said Juliana, who said she has not needed dialysis since the transplant.

She is on immunosuppressant medication, and in a year she can travel outside the country. Her goal is to visit her best friend in London in January 2012.

"She's a beautiful girl, she's got so many goals," said Hernandez, who has two sons and a daughter in their 20s.

Hernandez said she is taking care of her remaining kidney, which becomes a "super kidney," she said.

Jay Agarwal, a kidney specialist who lives in Redlands, said it is better to receive a kidney from a living donor. Living donors like Hernandez are fine with one kidney after, partly because doctors make sure they are healthy, he said.

A kidney from a living donor can last 10 to 20 years, he said.

"More than 10 years, easy," he said.

People are often afraid to donate a kidney, he said.

"Even when she was being rolled into surgery she could have raised her hand and said, `I changed my mind,"' Leo Schouest said. "Until it was over it didn't become real to me."

He said nothing would have happened without Hernandez.

"She had a strong faith, she found this is what her calling would be, this is what she would do," he said.

Hernandez said she is going to have a big party at the end of the month with all the leftover food. Her family and the Schouests plan to have dinner together, she said.

Next spring at OneLegacy's Donate Life Run/Walk, "I get to wear a shirt that says `donor,' " Hernandez said.

There are simple things people can do to help, she said - giving blood, joining the bone marrow registry.

"I'm not a hero, I'm just doing what any human would do," she said. "The heroes are on dialysis every day, fighting to stay alive."

"I have not been able to come up with a description of whom or what Patty is," Ellen Schouest wrote in a letter telling the transplant story. "Some people have called her an angel; I consider her something above and beyond - something too remarkable to describe.

"I have asked many people how I can possibly ever thank someone for giving my daughter the gift of life. One person sagely replied that that kind of person does not really want anything in return; it is obvious that she benefits simply from the gift of giving."

E-mail Staff Writer Joy Juedes at jjuedes@redlandsdailyfacts.com.

http://www.redlandsdailyfacts.com/news/ci_16486284