Kidney donation is right thing to do, woman says

Kidney donation is right thing to do, woman says

By Amanda Bohman
Published May 23, 2007

Lalena Leigh has every excuse not to help Brandie Williams, and yet she plans to give the sixth-grader a kidney this spring.

Leigh, 35, has a busy life — a husband, a job as a nurse, a small business selling grain, a house to clean, church dinners to host and children ages 5, 7, 8, 11, and 12 to look after.

But a flier stuck on a wall at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital caught her eye late last year.

The flier, by Brandie’s mother, was a plea for help. Her 12-year-old daughter has a disease, focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, that attacks the kidneys. Without a healthy kidney from a donor, Brandie will require kidney dialysis for the rest of her life. Brandie’s relatives have been ruled out as donors because the disease might be genetic.

So Leigh, who knew of the Williams family only slightly through her work in the hospital’s pediatrics unit when Brandie was a patient, underwent a battery of tests to confirm that she could, indeed, offer Brandie a kidney. Several people had offered to donate a kidney to Brandie before Leigh made her offer, but Gina Williams, Brandie’s mother, said Leigh was the only person to make it past the first stage in the screening process.

Making the decision to donate was easy.

“I can live without it and she can’t,” said Leigh, a 1988 graduate of West Valley High School. “I hope that if my family were in such desperate circumstances, someone would step up.”

Leigh, it seems, has a habit of helping those in need.

As the oldest of three children growing up in Fairbanks, Leigh brought home stray animals. At 5, she knew she wanted to be a nurse. At 13, she traveled to Africa as a Christian missionary. After marrying and starting a family, Leigh and her husband, Scott, became foster parents and later adopted.

Her mother, Maria Crites, was initially worried about her daughter’s decision to donate a kidney. Now she is proud.

“Sometimes, we have to do the right thing, even if the right thing sounds crazy,” Crites said.

In and out

Donating a kidney is not as big of a sacrifice as it might sound, according to some who have done it.

Chuck Mailander, a 48-year-old retail sales manager, donated a kidney to an acquaintance last year.

Mailander was discharged from Virginia Mason Medical Center two days after a surgeon blew carbon dioxide gas into his abdomen, used a tiny camera to locate his left kidney, made an incision large enough for a hand, removed the kidney and rinsed it with saline. Barbara McCarthy, a retired sixth-grade teacher from North Pole, lay in the operating room next door. Mailander knew her primarily through Fairbanks Light Opera Theatre.

Mailander said he was back to normal about two months after the surgery. To this day, he doesn’t notice the kidney is gone but for four small scars on his abdomen. He compares the surgery to a cesarean section. The only adjustment he has had to make is that he must avoid certain over-the-counter medications, such as Motrin or Aleve.

“Physiologically, the body can survive with one kidney for decades,” Mailander said. “I was able to give Barb a quality of life back.”

Nicky Eiseman, a 52-year-old librarian at West Valley High School, donated a kidney to her 19-year-old son last July.

The day of the surgery, Eiseman walked a mile from a rented apartment in Seattle to the University of Washington Medical Center, where her kidney was removed. When discharged from the hospital four days later, Eiseman said she walked the mile back to the apartment.

Since having the surgery, Eiseman takes better care of herself and makes sure she stays hydrated.

“I’m probably in better shape now than I was before,” she said.

Leigh has done what she can to learn about kidney donation. She has talked to several kidney donors, including two FMH nurses who donated kidneys to their sisters. She Googled “kidney donation” several times on the Internet.

Experts consider giving up a kidney low-risk, but not risk free.

Joel Newman, spokesman for the United Network for Organ Sharing, based in Richmond, Va., said surgery complications such as infection can arise but that the complications are usually manageable.

“There might be a surgical nick to surrounding organ or tissue,” Newman said. “The risk of dying form the procedure is very, very low.”

A small percentage of live kidney donors find themselves in need of a kidney transplant themselves someday. Live kidney donors get priority on the organ transplant list, Newman said.

Leigh has thought about the chance that her one kidney could go bad. She would turn to her husband or one of her children for help, she said.

“I have a huge donor bank at home,” Leigh said. “I am set.”

Getting ready

Lelana Leigh and her family live in a sprawling hilltop house north of Fairbanks. A hand-me-down church pew sits in place of a couch in the living room. Leigh home-schools two of her children and runs a small business importing grain from farms in the Lower 48 and selling it to about 150 clients in Fairbanks. She works at the hospital two days a week, and she teaches bread-making in her kitchen about once a month. Every other week, she hosts a dinner for about 25 people from her church, doing most of the cooking herself.

And she has her five children to take care of.

Those children are supportive, even proud of their mother, but are also eager to embark on an airplane trip outside of Alaska.

“One of the reasons I like it is that we’re going to get to go to Seattle,” said Josiah, the oldest.

Leigh talks with Brandie’s mother on the telephone regularly, usually to discuss the logistics of the transplant. The mothers have gotten together with their children a few times, once at McDonald’s Playland.

She said she feels a bond with Gina Williams and that she feels almost like a second mother to Brandie.

“I know if Gina had the option, she would give both of her kidneys to her child,” Leigh said. “I have children, and I think about how if this were my child, I would want someone to step in. I think we both have the same excitement of seeing Brandie get better and live a normal life.”

Leigh hopes to keep in touch with the Williams family and to watch Brandie grow and regain her strength. Her biggest worry is that Brandie’s body will reject the new kidney.

“It would be fun to watch her learn to drive a car or buy a dress for prom,” Leigh said. “I’m rather invested in this, and I really want it to go well.”

Contact staff writer Amanda Bohman at 459-7544 or abohman@newsminer.com.

This article may be accessed online at http://newsminer.com/2007/05/23/7142.