Trade would add years to a life: Quest for a kidney swap

Trade would add years to a life
Quest for a kidney swap
By CRYSTAL OWENS | crystal.owens@onlineathens.com | Story updated at 12:03 am on 9/6/2008

While most people buy classified ads to sell or buy a cast-off item, Athens resident Craig Deaton advertised last week with a more serious quest: He needed the tiny print to help find someone who can save his girlfriend's life.

But Deaton isn't just looking for a kidney donor. He's willing to trade his own in exchange for someone who can find a match for Linda Fowler, his girlfriend of 18 years.

"She can't take my kidney, but I will be willing to give anyone a kidney that can give her one," Deaton said.

Deaton's proposed swap is actually part of a nationally growing program - called paired exchange - where a patient who needs a kidney is matched up with a compatible stranger. In return, the patient must line up a friend or relative willing to donate an organ to a stranger, too.

Fowler, 63, is not a match with any of her family members or to Deaton, who has AB-positive blood. To make matters worse, because her O-positive blood type is so common, doctors have excluded Fowler from their hospitals' paired exchange programs.

Emory University and Piedmont hospitals in Atlanta and the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, so far, are the only medical facilities in Georgia to participate in such programs, Fowler said.

"We've been told by Emory and Augusta that we weren't eligible because of Craig being AB, and plus I'm O. But most families, if Craig gave an AB, then the family may not want to give me an O because there may be someone else in their family that would want an O. So it's a difficult situation," she said.

Fowler was diagnosed in 1978 with Bright's Disease or nephritis - inflammation of the kidney that is commonly caused by autoimmune disorders. The disease, Fowler said, destroys the filtering system in the kidney.

She had a successful transplant 22 years ago, but realized a year ago that her donated kidney also was starting to fail.

The couple is hoping that there is someone out there willing to give Fowler at least another 22 years of life.

"She knows that she can't wait, and she knows that she can't survive very long on dialysis also," Deaton said. Fowler will likely to have to start dialysis within the next several months, he said.

Kidney exchanges between families, Deaton said, can help patients avoid long waits on the transplant list and the serious decline in health that often occurs in people who are on dialysis for years at a time.

Since 2000, paired exchange transplants have increased drastically, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), a nonprofit, scientific and educational organization.

To date, doctors have performed 376 paired exchange transplants in the country, said UNOS spokeswoman Amanda K. Claggett.

Paired exchange transplants jumped from 74 in 2006 to 126 in 2007, when the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel found that the transplants didn't violate the terms of the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984, according to UNOS. The act said that organs could not be donated for gain, but until last year, didn't specify what that gain could mean.

For Deaton and Fowler, the only gain they're looking for is to share as many more years together as possible.

"We're praying for miracles, but still, we know it's going to take time," Deaton said.

KIDNEY CONTACT

• Athens residents Craig Deaton and Linda Fowler ask anyone interested in participating in a paired exchange kidney transplant to contact them at (706) 227-3439.
Originally published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Saturday, September 06, 2008

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