Five offer gift of kidney to Hobart man

[okarol]

Five offer gift of kidney to Hobart man

BY DEBORAH LAVERTY
dlaverty@nwitimes.com
219.762.1397, ext. 2223 | Tuesday, October 07, 2008 | 1 comment(s)

HOBART | Terry Zmucki will find out Thursday if his doctors believe he has a chance of getting a new kidney.

Zmucki said five people came forward with the offer to donate him their kidney following an article about him that appeared in The Times on Sept. 22.

The Hobart man, who undergoes dialysis three times a week, has been on a kidney donor list since early 2007.

"All who offered to donate me their kidney gave the same reason: my son. They told me they didn't want my 2-year-old son Zachary, to grow up without a father," he said.

Zmucki, who turned 37 last week, said either he or his wife has spoken on the phone to the potential donors who may or may not be a match.

"It was a positive thing getting people to respond. If it doesn't work out for me hopefully they will be willing to donate their organ to someone else," he said.

He has an appointment Thursday with his cardiologist at the University of Chicago Medical Center and should receive an answer about the kidney match then.

The new heart Zmucki received in a transplant Nov. 17, 2006, had been beating steadily up until a few weeks ago, when doctors put him back into the hospital for a checkup.

"I went back into the hospital to fix the blockage and I also experienced some possible rejection of my heart. They fixed it. I'm a lot better," he said.

The kidney he received during that same heart transplant failed two months after his surgery.

Zmucki said he received those organs from a 26-year-old Chicago man who had signed up to be an organ donor six days before he was fatally shot.

He said the best kidney match for him and for any recipient is from a living donor, not a cadaver. That's why he has spoken with family members and friends hoping to get a match with his B positive blood type.

It's his understanding from talking to his doctors that an O blood type also would be a possible match for him.

Zmucki was born with aortic stenosis -- a condition in which the heart's aortic valve narrows -- and had undergone seven open-heart surgeries prior to the transplant.

Doctors told him in 2005 there was not much more they could do, and he went on the heart transplant list in April 2006.

Donating

According to the University of Chicago Medical Center, more than 80,000 people are waiting for an organ donation at any given time. The center is helping to solve this by encouraging living donations for people who need kidney transplants. Almost 100 percent of the living donor kidney surgeries performed at the center are done laparoscopically with only a few small incisions now needed to remove a kidney.

For more information, contact the University of Chicago Medical Center at (888) UCH-0200.

How to register to be a donor

Indiana - Make the designation through the local Bureau of Motor Vehicles or by registering online at www.indianadonationalliancefoundation.org.

Illinois - Register online at www.cyberdriveillinois.com or call (800) 210-2106.

http://www.nwitimes.com/articles/2008/10/07//news/lake_county/docb61ba04b9cda4df9862574da0080616e.txt