TV show inspires R.I. man to become kidney donor

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TV show inspires R.I. man to become kidney donor

10:01 AM EST on Monday, January 4, 2010

By Thomas J. Morgan

Journal Staff Writer

Robert Upham remembers meeting Sandra Erice shortly after she received his donated kidney. “It was emotional. It was funny,” he says. And then everyone started crying.

The Providence Journal Andrew Dickerman

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Robert Upham didn’t even know Sandra Erice, but as he lay in Rhode Island Hospital on Dec. 7, surgeons removed one of his kidneys, carried it to an adjacent room, and implanted it in Erice’s body.

“I’m a little sore, but I’m doing all right,” Upham said on Thursday. Erice said she’s feeling fine, too.

Upham, assistant to the director of human resources at City Hall, said a TV show inspired him to become a kidney donor.

The show, which he recalls was aired in July or August, involved a half-dozen donors, which Upham thinks was the largest simultaneous transplant operation ever.

He explained that in a typical case a woman needs a transplant, but her husband’s kidney doesn’t match. But the husband’s kidney will likely match up with another patient somewhere who needs a transplant. Enter yet another donor, whose kidney type matches the wife’s.
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“It will kick off a chain of transplants,” Upham said.

Donors and recipients are lined up through a list, sometimes a national list. In the case of Upham and Erice, it was the New England list.

Upham said that as he watched the program he saw people of all ages donating organs.

“There was a guy in his late 20s, and a great-grandmother. I thought, OK, I’m in my 40s, somewhere between those folks. This is something I can handle.”

He said he spent a week researching the topic, and learned that Rhode Island Hospital is a transplant center, so he “got the ball rolling” in August.

First came a battery of tests, he reported, more tests than he ever thought likely.

“As a donor they want to make sure you are physically in excellent health before they take one of your kidneys,” he said. “There was an unbelievable number of blood tests, tests on my liver, MRIs. It included a psychiatrist –– they want to make sure you’re not a nut case. And you get to give more blood, though it seems you have already given three gallons. They do cross-matching, including blood, and six others.”

Finally, the hospital called Upham and reported that he matched with two people locally.

“Sometimes it’s around the country –– they send kidneys to California, New Jersey, Oregon.”

His match was with Erice, a Lincoln resident who works for Metropolitan Life Insurance. Erice, who has a history of urinary tract infections, had already received a donated kidney, from her daughter. It lasted 4½ years, but it failed, she said, and she spent two years on dialysis waiting for a suitable donor.

One of her coworkers came forward to offer a kidney, but she had a history of problems with blood clots, so she was ruled out. But another came forward, and although her kidney didn’t match, she offered to donate to anyone, which put Erice at the top of the New England list. Erice said if it had not been for her coworker’s offer, none of the chain of events would have taken place.

That’s how Upham and Erice wound up in adjacent hospital rooms.

“It’s major surgery,” Upham said. “Rhode Island Hospital does laparoscopic surgery. They go in around your belly button and put a couple of other incisions to get tools in. They started at 7 a.m., and I woke up around noon in recovery.”

Three days later, as he was getting ready to leave the hospital, they asked him if he would like to meet the recipient.

“I said, ‘Of course,’ ” Upham recalled.

“The meeting was just amazing, one of the high points of my life. It was emotional. It was funny. She walked in and she kind of looked at me and started to say, ‘Why?’ Then she started to cry. I said, ‘Don’t cry –– you’re going make me cry.’ We got the nurses crying, everybody crying. It was such a good thing.”

tmorgan@projo.com

http://www.projo.com/news/content/KIDNEY_DONOR_01-04-10_B6GVGGS_v10.38ac1b8.html