Grooms in need of gift of life

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Grooms in need of gift of life

By Frank Lewis
PDT Staff Writer
Monday, August 25, 2008

Life was going along great for Jami and John Grooms of Lucasville. They were both school teachers, active in the community and involved with their students and fellow faculty members.

Then, one day, the bottom fell out of their lives.

"It was in October of 2002, and I started getting really short of breath. And I have allergies really bad, and my allergist in Ashland said, 'Oh, it's just allergies,' and I couldn't breathe," said Jami Grooms. "I started falling asleep driving home from work, and I had nightmares."

Grooms said at that time, she was put on Prednisone, which she says made her condition worse.

"Everybody kept misdiagnosing me. Then finally in January, they sent me to Dr. (Ronald) Lopez, and he took one look at my numbers, and he said, 'You've got to go to the hospital. You're in renal failure,'" Grooms said.

That is when she found out she only had one kidney, and that kidney was malformed.

Grooms said at one point she had someone who had promised to donate a kidney to her, but that situation did not work out.

"I passed my stress test. All my tests were good. I was approved for a living donor, you know, transplant, and then this happened," Grooms said.

The "this" Grooms is referring to is when someone who had intended to donate the kidney to her chose not to do it.

"It's my fault. I can't fault her for anything. I just should have kept my mouth shut," Grooms said.

Grooms said a lot of people don't know she is on dialysis because of her healthy appearance. That concerns Grooms who is attempting to find a suitable donor.

Grooms taught at Portsmouth High School for 26 years, and she said she believes there are a lot of people who would offer to donate a kidney if they knew she had a need.

"I can't get on the phone and start calling people. There is no way I could contact everybody," Grooms said. "But this is not purely for me. This is for the 17 people who die every day because they need a kidney transplant. The 77,000 people who are waiting. This is something that is not well known."

Grooms said some people believe if they signed the organ donor place on their driver's license, medical professionals will let them die.

"That's not true," Grooms said.

Grooms talked about someone close to her who would not sign the organ donor box because she had been told medical professionals don't work as hard on people who are potential donors.

"That is just ignorant," Grooms said. "They don't even ask you. It's not until after you are brain dead."

Grooms, like anyone facing death without a transplant, has others she is thinking about besides herself.

"I have a 12-year-old son (J.T. Grooms, a student at Valley Middle School), and I want to raise him," Grooms said. "That's my boy. And then there's my husband. I love them both with all my heart. And this has been so hard on them."

Grooms' husband, John Grooms also taught and coached football and basketball at Portsmouth High School.

Grooms said dialysis not only affects the patient, but it affects the entire family.

"When you dialyze, your whole family dialyzes. They are on the same schedule, the same restrictions," Grooms said. "It's not a good process."

Grooms elaborated on the effect dialysis has on a family.

"In the good old days, John would say, 'Let's go down to Cincinnati - just pack up and go,' or, 'Let's go to Myrtle Beach,'" Grooms said. "That can't happen anymore."

Grooms said the cost of living on dialysis has financially ruined her family.

"And I will be honest with you right now - and this is humiliating - I'm on food stamps," Grooms said. "It's embarrassing. He (her husband) doesn't work because he's my caregiver."

Grooms said constant attention is required in her life because she passes out a lot because of low blood pressure.

"It (kidney disease) has affected my son. He can't play sports right now because of my schedule. He played T-ball and then I got sick, and I thought I could do it all, and I couldn't," Grooms said. "And I told him, 'Son, you can't play Little League,' and he just looked at me and said, 'Mom, the next time I play, I'm going to knock the cover off the ball for you.' That's the kind of kid he is."

Grooms said she takes dialysis treatments three times a week, and after a dialysis session, she becomes extremely weak and can't walk to her car, "and I feel really bad the whole day. The next day, I feel okay. I don't feel good, but I feel okay."

So what should people who want to become donors do?

"They should sign their card. If they don't become a living altruistic donor, they should sign their drivers license, because you're not going to need anything when you die," Grooms said. "And you are sparing your family a really terrible choice to make."

Grooms said she wants it to be known she needs a kidney.

"I've got to. I can't do this to my family anymore. My husband wants to get back to work. I want to get back to work. I love teaching. I miss it."

FRANK LEWIS can be reached at (740) 353-3101, ext. 232.

http://www.portsmouth-dailytimes.com/articles/2008/08/25/news//2news_grooms.txt