Mennonite Church pastor donates kidney for first-grade teacher

A lifesaving gift
Topeka Mennonite Church pastor donates kidney for first-grade teacher’s transplant

By Jennifer L. Boen jboen@news-sentinel.com

June 19, 2007

Last winter, when the Rev. Robert Martz came from Texas to apply for the pastor’s job at Topeka Mennonite Church, members of the search committee prayed together and felt he was God’s man for them. Little did they know the man they called would also be called to save the life of a Fort Wayne woman whose parents attend the church.

On Thursday, Martz donated a kidney to Colleen Smith, 47, a Fairfield Elementary School first-grade teacher. It was te first kidney transplant performed at Lutheran Hospital, which was accredited and certified last month on the procedure.

“We wondered what was taking so long to find a pastor,” said Jan Rines, Smith’s mother, who lives near the small LaGrange County town of Topeka. “Now we know.”

Martz, also 47, went home the day after giving his kidney. Smith was discharged Monday – her hero pushing her wheelchair as she left the hospital.

Doctors said Smith’s new kidney is functioning perfectly, and she hopes to return to her teaching job in the fall.

“I’m feeling wonderful,” Smith said. She anticipated feeling ill from the heavy doses of anti-rejection drugs. “I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop – everything has gone so well.”

Smith had been on the kidney transplant waiting list for 5 1/2 years. Her kidneys began failing about 13 years ago when, for unknown reasons, she developed severe high blood pressure.

During his meeting with the church’s search committee, Martz was told about the Rines’ daughter. Martz told the committee he had been lined up as a possible kidney donor for someone else, but a better match materialized.

On the February Sunday that Martz was installed as pastor, “He came to me and said, ‘I think I have something you can use,’” Smith recalled.

Martz was tested and found to match three of Smith’s six antigens that are evaluated for organ donation.

“That’s as good as getting a kidney from a brother or sister,” said Dr. Mahendra Govani, medical director of the Lutheran Kidney Transplant Center.

Meanwhile, Smith’s condition was deteriorating, so she and Martz planned to travel to a Wisconsin hospital for the transplant — until Lutheran’s kidney transplant center was certified.

The day after she was told surgery was a go, Martz’s kidney was removed and placed in Smith during a five-hour procedure.

More than a dozen medical staff members were involved in the surgeries.

“Surgery is the technical part. The post-op care of the patient is very important,” Govani said.

Smith will initially have blood work twice a week to check for rejection, though because she received a kidney from a living donor, that’s less of a threat, Govani said. The strong match also means Smith will not need to take steroid medication, which has a number of side effects. Steroids once were routinely used in all transplant recipients to help the body accept the kidney.

Three more people are currently on Lutheran’s kidney transplant waiting list, Govani said, with several more undergoing evaluation as potential recipients.

Previously, people in the area had to travel to Indianapolis, Cleveland, Detroit or Chicago for kidney transplants.

“We can do many more cases,” said Dr. A Tarik Kizilisik, Smith’s lead surgeon. Of the 96,000 Americans waiting for an organ, 72,000 of them are in need of a kidney.

Govani said pediatric kidney transplants will one day be done at Lutheran, but he and the other transplant team members want to ensure success with adults first.

Even before that – maybe in a year – Govani said Lutheran hopes to begin performing pancreas transplants.

Smith will no longer need the lengthy, three-times-a-week dialysis treatments she has required the past 5 1/2 years.

She told Martz she would “use the rest of my life to make things better. I can’t thank him enough. He’s given me my life back.”
See the video

To see a video of the kidney transplant, visit www.vimeo.com/clip:216128.

Warning: The video contains graphic images.

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/fortwayne/news/local/17389367.htm