September 26, 2008 9:45 PM CDT
POKIN AROUND: A priceless gift from a strangerBy Steve Pokin
Interested in donating a kidney?
If you want to inquire about being a living donor for someone, anyone, who needs a kidney, you may call one of the following kidney transplant centers:
• Barnes-Jewish Hospital, 314-362-5365.
• Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital, 314-577-5662.
• St. Louis Children’s Hospital at Washington University Medical Center, 314-454-4131.
• Saint Louis University Hospital, 314-577-8867.
If you are interested in being an organ donor after you die, go to
www.donatelife.net, and click on "commit to donation" and then click on Missouri. Or call 804-782-4920.
You can live in a world of what-ifs.
What if I fail? What if I’m rejected? What if the cancer comes back?
Or this. What if I give a kidney to a stranger and, later in life, someone I deeply love needs one?
Christi Rooke, 28, of Pittsburgh, chose the world as it is, the need that is here and now, and, as a result, a St. Charles woman has received the priceless gift of health, the gift of a kidney.
"What if my brother or sister gets kidney disease? Or my mom?" Rooke says.
Or what if someday, when she and her husband have children, one of them needs a kidney?
"The statistical chances of that are very slim," she says. "But on the other hand, you have a 50-year-old mother — a wife, a daughter — who needs a kidney. I did not want to live in the what-ifs. It’s pretty basic. I have two kidneys. I can live with one. She can’t."
Rooke is one of a growing number of Americans who have donated a kidney not to their child, a sibling or a loved one — but to a stranger.
Of the 6,041 kidney transplants in the United States from a living donor in 2007, there were 1,254, or 20.8 percent, that involved a kidney given by someone who was a stranger to the donor. That is double the percentage from 1999, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network in Richmond, Va.
The transplant of Christi’s kidney into LouAnn Blusiewicz occurred Aug. 12 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
At Mayo, roughly 75 percent of the kidneys transplanted come from living donors, which is much higher than the national rate of 35 to 40 percent. Transplants from living donors are preferred to those from cadavers because living donors can be tested prior to transplant; living donor kidneys last longer — 25 years compared to 10 years; transplants from living donors can be done immediately while the wait for a cadaver kidney is typically three to five years; and most kidneys from living donors function immediately.
Of the living donors at Mayo, about two-thirds are blood relatives of the recipient and the other third is spouses, says Dr. Mikel Prieto, a kidney transplant surgeon at Mayo.
Only one or two of the 200 or so kidney transplants done annually at Mayo involve donors who did not know the recipient, he says.
"It is not very common," he says. "But it is not unheard of."
Christi says that if fate should turn, and later in life a loved one desperately needs a kidney, she can only hope that someone else, perhaps a stranger, will step forward.
LouAnn, 50, says words fail her.
"It is amazing to understand that somebody that you don’t even know is going to give you something like that," she says.
LouAnn’s mother, Mary Minarchek, of Kennesaw, Ga., lost her husband to the same disease that afflicted LouAnn.
"How do you thank somebody who does that for your daughter?" she asks. "Christi was a perfect match. It is just a godsend. We feel it’s a miracle."
Minarchek knows Christi’s parents were concerned about their daughter’s decision.
Yes, they were apprehensive, Christi says.
"My heart is for those who tend to be overlooked," Christi says. "My parents — since I was in high school — have always dealt with that. It’s a big part of me."
Christi and her husband, John, have served as house parents for boys in the juvenile justice system. They deliberately chose to live in a part of Pittsburgh’s inner city that others might avoid.
"I love my parents," she says. "And I want their approval. But I had this gut feeling that this is what I was meant to do."
Christi had taken steps twice before to donate a kidney. The second time, she was a nursing student at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center when she was tested for tissue and blood compatibility. Although she was not a match, she had mentioned the testing to a nurse she worked with, Mary Jane Melville, LouAnn’s older sister.
Later, when LouAnn’s health suffered, Melville asked Christi if she would be interested in donating. Christi said yes.
LouAnn has polycystic kidney disease (PKD), the most common inherited disease in the United States. It affects one in 500 people. Sacs of fluid grow on the kidneys and often lead to high blood pressure, pain and kidney failure.
A normal kidney is the size of a fist and weighs a third of a pound. A kidney stricken by PKD can swell to the size of a football and weigh as much as 38 pounds.
LouAnn’s father had PKD and died of related heart failure in 1999. Neither of LouAnn’s two sisters has the disease.
LouAnn, who works at the preschool at Faith United Methodist Church in St. Charles, for years has had her kidney function checked every six months. Her health declined precipitously in December. She was told by doctors she would need to go on dialysis in a year.
"By June of this year I had more bad days than good," she says. "My thinking was not real clear. I was gaining a lot of fluids. The toxins were building up in me."
A healthy set of kidneys will filter 50 gallons of blood a day and remove about a half-gallon of waste and excess water.
Christi went through a battery of tests, physical and psychological. She had talked on the phone with LouAnn, and they had e-mailed. But they did not meet until two days before the surgery. Both families had Sunday night dinner together at a Rochester restaurant. Christi’s parents had flown in from Austin.
"When my parents met LouAnn and her family, they understood," Christi says. "And then before the surgery they told me, ‘We just want you to know that we understand. We know why you are doing this.’"
All of Christi’s medical expenses were paid through LouAnn’s insurance. In addition, LouAnn and her husband paid Christi’s airfare, food and lodging. They also paid for a rental car.
Kidney surgery for the donor is statistically very safe, Christi says.
Nevertheless, the moment eventually came when it was time for Christi to leave her husband and head into the unknown of transplant surgery. And that moment, Christi says, was scary.
"There can always be complications," she says. "From bleeding. From the anesthesia. Pneumonia. Not waking up."
Christi says it was her faith, her belief in how to live her life, that put her in that operating room.
"I feel honored and privileged to take part in what God wants to do in LouAnn’s life," she says. "I am called to follow Jesus and be like him. He did not just talk about things. He did things."
The transplant was a wonderful success for both donor and recipient.
LouAnn’s husband, Steve, says Christi’s father commented that if there were a beauty pageant for how well a post-transplant kidney performed then Christi’s would have won hands-down.
LouAnn must take anti-rejection medications for the rest of her life. Christi, a marathon runner, must be on guard for high blood pressure and diabetes. She is confident she will live a full life with one kidney. Actually, one in every 750 people is born with only one kidney, according to the National Kidney Foundation.
And what if, despite some of the best medical preparations in the world, LouAnn had rejected this gift?
"We live in a world that is about results," Christi says. "But that is not what it should be about. It is about relationships. ... All you can do is what you can."
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