Hudsonville woman benefits from two kidney donations, including paired donor exc

Hudsonville woman benefits from two kidney donations, including paired donor exchange involving husband
Published: Monday, January 17, 2011, 5:45 AM Updated: Monday, January 17, 2011, 11:39 AM
By Sue Thoms | The Grand Rapids Press

As organ transplants become increasingly common, it’s easy to forget how truly remarkable they are. With each successful organ transplant, a life is saved, fear is vanquished by hope, and a community of friends and family rejoices. We asked readers to tell us how organ donation and transplants have touched their lives. Here are their stories.
HUDSONVILLE — Organ donation saved Dina Jarmolowicz’s life not once, but twice.
In two operations 17 years apart, she saw how transplant process has changed.
The Hudsonville resident was 26 years old when a virus caused her kidneys to fail in 1990.
She began dialysis and waited for a transplant.
Cell phones were not common then, so she carried a pager everywhere she went, not wanting to miss the call if the kidney became available.
On a November day two years later, the call came from the University of Michigan Hospital. Jarmolowicz and her husband, Kevin, who lived in Harbor Springs at the time, drove through a snowstorm to Ann Arbor for the surgery.
About the donor, Jarmolowicz knows only that she was a nurse who had two daughters.
“It’s heart-wrenching to know somebody else’s family is suffering because of their loss,” she says.
She sent a letter to the donor’s family, but she felt there was no way to fully express her gratitude.
“How do you say thank you to someone for saving your life?” she asked. “‘Thank you’ just seems so insignificant.”
Jarmolowicz took good care of her health and did what she could to keep her new kidney healthy but, 10 years after the transplant, it began to fail. At that point, she was studying education at Grand Valley State University. While student teaching in 2002, she began dialysis again.
To her surprise, dialysis was not as difficult as it had been 10 years earlier. In the 1990s, she was nauseated every time she had dialysis. The second time, she felt better during treatments and more toxins were removed from her blood.
The downside was that many more people were on dialysis — and on the transplant list. For eight years, Jarmolowicz underwent four-hour dialysis sessions three times a week. Eventually, the process took a toll on her body, leaving her drained of energy.
Her husband, a pharmacist, wanted to give her one of his kidneys for a transplant, but he was not a compatible match. But then he found out about paired donor exchanges.
Through the University of Michigan Hospital, the Jarmolowiczes were paired with another couple. Kevin donated a kidney for that couple, and they donated one for Dina.
“I had a lot of mixed emotions about someone I know and love willing to go through surgery and give up a kidney for me,” says Dina Jarmolowicz. “There were several times I told him, ‘I don’t want you to do this,’ but he was steadfast in his decision.”
Since receiving her new kidney in January 2010, Jarmolowicz has slowly recovered from the years of functioning without one.
She wants to finish her master’s degree and volunteer in schools. And she and her husband are enjoying the ability to travel without planning months in advance for her dialysis treatments.
“I’m just kind of getting used to living again,” she says.

E-mail Sue Thoms: sthoms@grpress.com

http://www.mlive.com/health/index.ssf/2011/01/hudsonville_woman_benefits_fro.html