Celebrating a second Thanksgiving

11/28/2009 1:05:00 PM

Celebrating a second Thanksgiving

By MARK HUBER

mhuber@wnewsj.com

Her face flush with emotion and tears welling in her eyes, Andrea Tacoronte searched thoughtfully for words to describe the relationship she now has with her brother Joe Kratzer.

She tilted her head and looked to the ceiling. Her lips trembled.

“For me … to watch him live his life the way he has … I have this sense of pride knowing I put a brick in that foundation because he has truly lived a wonderful life,” Tacoronte said.

As we celebrate Thanksgiving Day across the country, Joe, Andrea and their families will be commemorating their second day of thanks this calendar year.

As mother Dorothea Kratzer puts it, “We’re going to celebrate Thanksgiving. I’m going to Joe’s. Andrea’s going to Joe’s. But I say June 8 is our Thanksgiving because that’s when we knew we were going to keep Joe.”

On June 8, 1989, one of Andrea’s kidneys was successfully transplanted into Joe’s body. The operation saved Joe’s life and gave Andrea an overwhelming sense of pride.

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Joe Kratzer was an “athlete to the core,” as Andrea put it. He was a football and track/field standout at Blanchester High School in the mid-1970s. Though not very big by today’s standards, the 6-0, 185-pound Kratzer was a down lineman and discus thrower for the Wildcats. He was team captain, all-league, all-district, all-state. Kratzer’s football career was capped off by winning the Lombardi Award in 1976.

In track and field at BHS, Kratzer was team captain, team MVP, league champion and school record-setter. He went on to earn four varsity letters in track and field at Ohio Northern University where he was a three-time all-league performer.

In the fall of 1978, Kratzer’s life changed forever. His father Dale died unexpectedly Aug. 20. Shaken by her husband’s death, Dorothea ordered the kids to have physical examinations. A strapping 19-year-old at the time, Kratzer found studying in college difficult. He had swelling in his legs and unexplained bleeding from his nose.

He went to Dr. John Hollon, who referred him to a specialist in Columbus during the Christmas break that year. Further examination found that Kratzer’s kidneys were failing. He had end stage renal disease (ESRD), an irreversible ailment that would eventually lead to death if a transplant was not performed. He began taking medicine for his high blood pressure (190/120 at one time, he said).

“They said the progression of the disease was subtle,” Joe recalled. “It could take two years, it could take 10 years.”

Joe hid his malady, even though it couldn’t easily be seen. There was a stigma about someone with faulty kidneys.

“It defined who I was or what I did for the next 5, 6, 7, 8 years,” he said. “The unknown … the uncertainty to commit, think long-term. Here I was a young guy trying to get a start in life and I hesitated to tell people because I didn’t know how they’d react. Were you damaged goods or what?”

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Kratzer admits these were trying times but he persevered. He moved to Texas and things were going as well as could be expected until 1985.

“It didn’t really hit me until I was out of college working and moved to Texas,” he said. “It’s like I flipped a switch. It hit me.”

Dorothea received a call from Kratzer’s friend in Texas.

“His health just gradually deteriorated,” Dorothea said. “The kidneys were giving up. He said ‘Joe couldn’t function down here (in Texas) and needed to come home.’”

In December 1987, Kratzer started on a dialysis machine, an artificial kidney replacement. Kratzer started out with one treatment per day. By June 1988, he was up to a maximum of three treatments per day, a downward spiral that signalled the end was near.

Said Kratzer, “I was really worried. I didn’t look good. I had no energy. It wasn’t really a good existence.”

As bad as things were, Kratzer said it’s a time in his life he never wants to forget for fear of losing sight of what he has now.

“I don’t want to forget that because I don’t want to forget the value of what I’ve gotten,” he said.

With a transplant on the horizon, testing was started to find a matching donor. Brother Michael and sister Andrea were both matches but Andrea was deemed the better choice. However, she was pregnant. The transplant would have to wait until the baby was born. Keely Tacoronte was born July 8, 1988.

By January 1989, Kratzer called his kid sister.

“Hey sis, you think you could hurry things up?” Andrea recalled being asked. “It’s getting a little dicey here.”

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Joe and Andrea Kratzer were four years apart in school. Joe was a senior when Andrea was an eighth grader. They had “a pretty typical” relationship at that time, Andrea recalled.

“I got on his nerves,” she admits.

But she also comes clean with her affection for her big brother.

“I also think that I had a hero worship thing going on,” she said. “Joe played the trombone. I played the trombone. Joe threw the discus. I threw the discus. I think there was a piece of me that looked up to him.”

Andrea was in her 20s when her brother’s life was in serious jeopardy. She didn’t hesitate when it came time to offering one of her own kidneys to save her brother.

“They told me this will add 10 to 15 more years to his life,” she said. “At that time, you’re in your 20s and you don’t have a good concept of what that means.

“I don’t remember ever having a moment when I felt apprehensive until the night before the (transplant) surgery. I was in the hospital by myself waiting. Suddenly, it was like ‘Oh, what am I doing?’’

For mom, it was worse.

“It was terrible to send two of your children in (to surgery) at one time,” Dorothea said. “I think about that sometimes. But there was nothing I could do. It was not in my hands. We were all concerned but I went with the flow.”

——

The surgery was such a success for Kratzer he was sitting up in bed, talking on the phone and directing the nurses’ traffic in the hospital room. Andrea, on the other hand, was a mess.

“For 24 hours, the only parts I remember were truly horrible,” she said. “I guess losing one kidney is a shock to the body.”

Once everybody was fully recovered, lives settled back into a more normal pattern. In fact, Kratzer went back to work less than a month after the surgery and didn’t take a day off until almost Thanksgiving 1989.

The family celebrates Kratzer’s life with a whimsical cake that features “Sidney the Kidney,” the name they’ve given the kidney Andrea passed on to Joe.

On a more serious note, Kratzer not only gained a kidney during this process, but he gained a partner for life when he met his wife Susan, who was one of the nurses Kratzer had while he was on dialysis.

While Kratzer’s life obviously changed because of all this, Andrea’s too has been altered … for the better.

“He’s really, really grateful,” she said. “He sends me flowers every year, no matter where he is. I realize how special it is to him.

“For me, as you get older, you start doing an inventory of your life and ask ‘What have I done?’ … I don’t have to ask that because that (life) is the most wonderful gift someone can give.”

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