Sibling salvation

Sibling salvation

Daily Record
June 28, 2007

After 30 years on the police force, coming to the rescue for thousands of people, Jack Cole at 58 needed a little rescuing himself.
Cole was forced to retire from the Springtown Police Department in 2003 after heart attacks rendered him unable to work. Two years later, cancer cost him a kidney, then the other kidney shut down and he went on dialysis.
He was on the verge of letting go and letting nature take its course when help came – from a very familiar source.

Today at Southwest Medical Center in Dallas, his younger sister, Joretta Lanier of Azle, will give him a kidney, and the gift of life.
Cole’s 9-1-1 call originated on the Danang River in Vietnam during the 60’s as he and his crew watched United States planes defoliate the riverbanks with the herbicide they called Agent Orange.
The sailors had been told that the chemical was harmless to everything except the brush growing along the riverside that obscured their view of the enemy.
“So we continued to do our job,” Cole said.
He left the Navy in 1967, returning to Texas and his wife Connie, where he thought he was safe. But the job had followed him home.

Cole’s name, like most dialysis patients’, was placed on the kidney transplant list. As of 11 a.m. Tuesday, June 28, there were 76,118 on that list according to the United Network for Organ Sharing – 5,949 of those in Texas. The number of people waiting for all organs nationwide was 103,412 and 8,215 of them were in Texas.
Those numbers surprised Cole and brought back memories of 1976 – the day his son, Donnie, died in a tractor accident at the age of nine.
Physicians asked Cole and Connie to donate Donnie’s organs but “I didn’t believe in transplants then,” he said.
Searching the floor with his eyes he suddenly looked up and said, “I really just didn’t want my son all cut up.They tried to talk me into it but I refused. I wish I hadn’t.”

...

The average wait for a new kidney is 8 to 10 years. After 10 years on dialysis, Cole’s chances of receiving a donated kidney would be very limited. He was considering the thought of discontinuing dialysis and letting nature take its course when last year his younger sister, Joretta Lanier, suddenly said, “I would give you a kidney if I could.”
With those words Lanier, who has lived in Azle most of her life realized “I can give him a kidney – and I am!”
“I didn’t have to think about it long,” she said. “The fact is that I love him.”
She dabbed a tissue her eyes as her brother said, “I didn’t try to talk her out of it. But I did give her outs.”
Lanier and her husband Bill have two birth children, a stepdaughter and 11 grandchildren. Included in his “outs” Cole asked his sister what would happen if in the future her remaining kidney failed, or if one of her children or grandchildren needed a kidney.
But to Lanier the here and now outweighs the “what if’s.”
“It’s a decision I want to make,” she said. “And it’s me giving my kidney.”
Surgery is scheduled for this Thursday, June 28, at Southwest Medical Center in Dallas. After months of counseling, testing and planning, Joretta Lanier and her big brother Jack Cole were counting down the days.
The cost of each surgery, according to Cole, is between $300,000 and $500,000 – all paid for by the federal government.
“All except for her time off work and travel expenses,” he said, looking down at his sister. “I do hold them responsible but I don’t hold a grudge,” he added
It’s been over six months since testing began and the siblings have been found to be very compatible.
“We match in six areas,” Cole bragged. Pointing to his stomach he said, “Our kidney will be in my stomach, not my side.”
Then looking his sister straight in the eye, he gave her his best big-brother grin and said, “I’m going to call it Retta. I’ve called her that all her life.”
She laughed, saying, “That’s fine with me.”
He explained, “You see, our parents are gone and since I’m the oldest I try to be the monarch of the family...”
“But I’m the mom!” Loretta interrupted.
“We always need a mom,” Jack said. “My sister is my lifesaver.”

http://www.azle-news.net/news/get-news.asp?id=7515&catid=1&cpg=get-news.asp