Just how much are we willing to give?

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Just how much are we willing to give?

Glenda H. Caudle Special Features Editor
Posted: Friday, November 27, 2009 5:42 pm
 
By GLENDA H. CAUDLE Special Features Editor • Would you save a life? Theoretically, the answer is a bold one. Realistically, the response may be more timid. • Would you interrupt your own life plans and goals to save a life? Theoretically, the answer is a robustly affirmative one. Realistically, the response may be less than positive. • Would you put your own health — your own life — at risk to save a life? Theoretically, the answer is a self-sacrificial one. Realistically, the response may be intensely self-protective. It is in that realm of possibility — somewhere between theory and reality — that a life was saved. David Passmore received the gift. Penny McCawley offered it. This is the way it happened. A little history Passmore, who grew up in Union City and makes his home in Rogers, Ark., inherited a full measure of positive genes from his parents, the late Gene and Joy Passmore of Union City. But included in the mix was one real zinger — polycystic kidney disease. It killed his paternal grandmother and affected his father in his 50s. Gene Passmore battled severe health problems with courage and good humor, spending eight months on hemodialysis and eventually undergoing a kidney transplant. David Passmore and his sister, Christy, underwent testing soon after their father was diagnosed to determine if they were affected by the disease, which is characterized by the growth of numerous fluid-filled cysts on the kidneys that cause the organ to enlarge dramatically and lose function and, eventually, to negatively impact the liver and pancreas and — in some cases — the heart and brain, as well. The siblings repeated ultrasounds each year in an effort to “catch” the disease as early as possible. In 1991, David learned he was truly his father’s son. “I knew I would have to deal with it one day, but I kept on praying and left it in God’s hands,” he says. Meanwhile, he continued the work he had always wanted to do — positions with Walmart that began soon after his high school graduation and a rise to the responsibilities of senior director of facilities services for Walmart stores. He began a family and then assumed the role of a single dad raising two sons. Allan is 7 years old now and Tanner is 12. For many of those years, the disease hovered like a vague shadow in the background of a busy life. One day, it became a terrible reality. Eventually, dialysis was a necessity. “I had seen what my dad went through with hemodialaysis and I knew I didn’t want that form of treatment. The time he was on it was miserable for him,” David recalls. His own story included a revised chapter, thanks to advances in medical treatment. He was able to treat the condition with peritoneal dialysis for 15 months. The procedure is less invasive and can be done at home during eight to nine hours of rest at night. Nevertheless, it is a treatment; not a cure. And it cannot be utilized indefinitely. At some point, David Passmore — father, brother, friend, extended family member, business professional — was going to require a healthy kidney to stay alive. A different perspective Penny McCawley is a pastor’s wife; mother of three, mother-in-law and grandmother of two; friend; extended family member; licensed minister; business professional. She is, in fact, employed by the same company as David Passmore — as his administrative assistant. The two have worked together for six years. Mrs. McCawley knows something about polycystic kidney disease. Her father-in-law has been diagnosed with the illness, as has her husband. But both are doing well. Some who have the disease show little distress to their systems and never have to resort to dialysis or transplants. This seems to be the case in the McCawley family. Mrs. McCawley knows something about her boss’ commitment to his family. She has watched him devote himself to caring for his young sons. Mrs. McCawley knows something about suffering. She saw it daily when Passmore endured a strangulated hernia as the result of his dialysis last Easter. “I watched him just go down through that and I kept thinking, “Those boys need a dad.’” Her “aha!” moment came in her office one day. “I just thought, ‘I wonder if I might be a match,’ (for a kidney transplant) so I just pursued it. I talked to my husband, Mal, about it and we began to pray that if this was His will, He needed to open doors. My husband was very supportive. Right up front, he said if he could do it, he would.” Mrs. McCawley contacted the transplant center at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville and asked for information about becoming a kidney donor. They told her the first step was determining her blood type, so for the first time in her life, she donated blood. “That was a memorable day! It was a very rewarding experience in itself,” she recalls. Two weeks later, she was notified of her blood type and discovered she was a “universal donor.” She notified the staff at Vanderbilt, who then sent her a kit for drawing yet more blood and returning it to their labs, with help from a doctor’s office in her home in Bentonville, Ark. She also casually inquired in an e-mail to Passmore, who was traveling away from the office at the time, what his blood type was. “I thought nothing of it,” Passmore says now. “At that point, I had already gone through the possibility of four or five living donors, but something always prevented us from finding a good match. In one case, the potential donor had high blood pressure and in another there was the potential for diabetes. My sister even offered, but it just wasn’t going to work. When Penny asked my blood type, I assumed someone had called the office and inquired, but that had happened before. I told her I was O positive and didn’t think any more of it.” Meanwhile, Mrs. McCawley was relaying the news to the transplant team at Vanderbilt. The answer came back quickly: The two were a match. If Mrs. McCawley was still willing, it was time to move to the next level of testing. And there would be no financial expense to her, as the donor, at any stage of the procedure, she was informed. It was also time to alert Passmore, who says: “The next morning, Penny sent me another e-mail. It said, ‘We have some praying to do because WE are a match.’” Passmore knew faith and obedience to God’s will would be guiding the McCawley family. “Penny and Mal met together a lot and made sure to look for any blocks God might put up, but everything hit just right. They took that as a sign that this was what God was calling her to do and when she was convinced of that, she went straight forward with it. It is such a gift of life.” Passmore knows better than anyone else, except for those patients and their families who wait in desperate hope of a donor, just how urgent the need is for someone to share an organ. The typical wait for a dialysis patient for a cadaver kidney (one received from a donor who has just died) is three to five years. Living donors are, thus, special gift-givers, indeed. “I was so blessed to only be on dialysis for 15 months,” Passmore says. Moving forward The Vanderbilt team next put the potential donor through her medical paces: a glucose tolerance test, a kidney scan, an EKG and chest x-ray, lots of blood work and a close watch on her blood pressure. She passed with flying colors. Then there was an appointment with the ethics committee. No, she told them, she was not being coerced in any way or offered any payment. She was, she says, simply trying to be obedient to God’s will. The green light’s flash was almost blinding and the pair who were planning to share a vital piece of life checked their calendars and decided on a date. Mrs. McCawley had added another title to the ones she already held — mother of the bride — and she asked if the transplant could be arranged around her daughter’s September wedding date. “Like most women, I had promised myself I would lose weight before the wedding, and when the transplant team told me every pound I could shed would be of benefit, I really got serious. My husband and I enjoy riding bikes, so I set myself the goal of riding my bike the distance from my home to Nashville. In driving miles, that’s about 556. By air, it’s around 440. So I cycled 450 miles and lost 20 pounds in the process. I went into the surgery in the best shape I have been in for years,” Penny McCawley says. As she prepared for the surgery Oct. 13, there were a few anxious moments for the future donor. “There were some moments of being scared, but I was pretty calm about all of it. I knew it was the right thing to do. At work we stress doing the right thing and I just felt like following through was part of doing the right thing.” Both the donor and the recipient were patients at Vanderbilt for three days and then they joined each other on Oct. 16 at the home of Passmore’s sister, who lives in Nashville and works at Vanderbilt as executive director of Vanderbilt Athletics Development and the National Commodore Club. On Oct. 28, Mrs. McCawley got the go-ahead to return to Arkansas. Passmore followed on Nov. 5. His hometown physician does routine checkups and forwards lab work to Vanderbilt and Passmore will continue that program once a month. He will be returning to Music City for additional follow-up this week — and probably annually thereafter — and will then join his extended family in Mayfield, Ky., to celebrate the holidays. He hopes to visit with friends in Union City, with whom he has been able to re-establish contact, thanks to FaceBook, soon. Would Penny McCawley do it again? Absolutely. “I’ve learned the importance of listening to God. This was a lesson in obedience and following through. It was a very challenging experience but very rewarding.” Through the months of preparation for the surgery, Mrs. McCawley drew particular strength from the fourth chapter of Philippians in the Bible. “Rejoice in the Lord alway; and again I say, Rejoice. … Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4:4, 6-7) “Those verses carried me through the surgery and recovery. During this time I’ve learned to take better care of myself. It’s been good for me to watch my weight and my blood pressure.” Passmore, who received his new lease on life on the anniversary of the day he joined his beloved Walmart family, has a testimony of his own. “We had prayers from California to Maine and on down to Florida. I’ve had people tell me their churches and their prayer groups were praying for me and the donor. Bob Carpenter (in Union City) let me know he’s been part of a group that has been praying. It was the most comfort to know it was all in God’s hands. I already know of two people who have been touched enough by this story to become anonymous organ donors. They will be giving a life-saving gift and the person who receives it will never even know who provided it. I just hope telling this story will bring someone closer to a life-changing experience, that it will impact a life. It’s been an incredible journey. I’ve been amazed how many good people there are in this world and Penny will tell you this was all for God’s glory.” In most homes across the nation this holiday season, there will be good food and fellowship and a looking forward to the excitement and blessings of Christmas. In two homes, there will be special joy and gratitude because death and despair have been defeated and love and faith have won the victory. In some homes, though, there is still a waiting of quiet desperation, tinged with the dread and fear that no one will offer hope and help in time.

Published in The Messenger 11.25.09

http://www.nwtntoday.com/news.php?viewStory=34395