Dorie Heckman, dialysis patient for 40 years, dies

[okarol]

Dorie Heckman, dialysis patient for 40 years, dies

SATURDAY, JULY 30, 2011
BY JAY LEVIN
STAFF WRITER THE RECORD

Dorie Heckman of Secaucus, who underwent dialysis for four decades – a record for the Manhattan kidney center where she received treatment — died Thursday at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. She was 55.

Dorie Heckman was the longest-ever dialysis patient at the Rogosin Institute.
Ms. Heckman was president of the Heckman Foundation for Kidney Research, established in 1974 by family and friends in honor of her father, August W. Heckman, who was a Superior Court judge in Hudson and Bergen Counties. Among the foundation's beneficiaries is the Rogosin Institute, where Ms. Heckman had three-hour dialysis sessions three days a week.

"People ask me how do you do it?" Ms. Heckman said in a 1979 New York Daily News article about the foundation. "And I answer, I choose life."

Susan Spiegel, the Rogosin Institute's director of development and public affairs, said Ms. Heckman was Rogosin's longest-ever dialysis patient. She called Ms. Heckman's longevity on dialysis "remarkable." But it was not a world record. Northwest Kidney Centers in Seattle last year honored a former patient, a British physician who has undergone dialysis since 1963.

Ms. Heckman had medullary cystic kidney disease, a genetic disorder. At 14, she had a stroke because of kidney failure and was in a coma for three days, her sister Caroline Addeo said.

Ms. Heckman received a kidney from her mother, Rosanna Heckman. The organ was rejected and two subsequent transplants in her teenage years also failed. Two brothers died of kidney disease – August Jr. at 14 and Bernard at 40. Addeo and another brother, Glenn Heckman, do not have kidney disease.

Addeo said her sister was a tenacious woman who "chose life over disability."

"She didn't want people feeling sorry for her, and that's what spurred her on," Addeo said.

Ms. Heckman graduated from Jersey City State College with a degree in art and a minor in math. She had worked for the United Way of Hudson County and as an aide to Rep. Frank J. Guarini. She also was a self-employed investor.

She enjoyed going to the theater and traveled to Hawaii and California, where she arranged to receive dialysis at her destinations. When summering at the Shore, she went to Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch for dialysis.

Ms. Heckman's health declined last year, "but she never lost her verve for living," her sister said. "She was never without a smile, and never without caring for others."

Visiting will be 2 to 4 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m. Sunday at Mack Memorial Home, Secaucus. The funeral service will be 10:30 a.m. Monday at St. Matthew Lutheran Church, Secaucus. Burial will be in Bayview Cemetery, Jersey City.

E-mail: levin@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/obituaries/126444218_Dorie_Heckman__dialysis_patient_for_40_years__dies.html

[galvo]

R.I.P.

[hemohortensia]

I met Dorie in the summer of 1981 when I was 22 and she 25. I had just started dialysis and she had been on for twelve years. Twelve?! I didn't think it possible. But there she was, laughing. Over the next 30 years, with the exception of when her brother Bernard died (they both dialysed at the Rogosin Institute), Dorie was always laughing. I once asked her why and she replied, "Because I'm happy." It was a lesson.

I tend to keep to myself at dialysis, maintaining few friendships. Dorie was one of those few. That I will never see my friend of 30 years is unfathomable. I shall miss her.

[ESRD Survivor]

She gives me hope.  My brother and I were diagnosed with the same disease, he was 13 and I was suppose to be his donor till I went for testing and found out I had it too.  I was 21.  That was in 1984.  My brother is on his 3rd transplant and I am on hemo and on the waiting list for my 3rd as well. 

I know she has found peace and wish those around her peace as well.