Connected by a kidney

Connected by a kidney

Posted: Sunday, May 15, 2011 8:08 am
By KATE FRATTI Staff Writer |

Marian Boden isn't especially religious, but she is in touch with her own spirituality. And she hopes it doesn't sound weird or silly, but she really does believe we're all connected to one another.
It means that when I demean you, I demean me. When I cause you injury, I hurt myself. And conversely, when I do something to lift you up, I'm elevated, too.

And if I had the courage to do what Marian has agreed to do - donate a healthy kidney to a stranger - I would not only help heal the stranger, but me, too.
I'm not sure I have it in me. But Marian, 42, a veterinarian at the Columbus Central Veterinary Hospital in Mansfield, does.
She decided to help after seeing a billboard along the Pennsylvania Turnpike featuring Jerry Alampi, a teacher, driver's ed instructor and former football coach with the Central Bucks School District in Pennsylvania.
Jerry is a Richboro, Pa., resident who's been on dialysis a darned long time. Then, through a series of conversations among acquaintances, a former student learned of Jerry's troubles. She was in a position to offer him some very prominent billboard space on which to seek a donor. "I need an angel," the boards read.
"It does pay to advertise," Jerry quipped.
Marian saw one billboard while coming home from visiting her mother. Not long after - now this is serendipity - she saw Jerry talk about his predicament on TV. She was sure she was being called to action. She'd often toyed with the idea of kidney donation. Here was a clear opportunity to look into it for real.
Jerry's wife, Linda, a guidance counselor at the William Penn Middle School in Lower Makefield, was the one to call me with the good news. I knew Linda because she annually directs Pink Flamingo Day at her school to raise money and awareness for the National Kidney Foundation.
Marian, who lives in Hainesport, was a blood and tissue match. She passed all the physical, emotional and psychological screenings, and would donate her kidney to Jerry on June 14, Flag Day.
"I know there's still a very long road ahead of us," Linda said.
The road is so much easier to navigate now that there is hope.
While she and Jerry have been very upbeat in public, there have been private moments when they wept. Jerry, after all these years, still can make Linda belly-laugh. And it looked as if she would surely lose him if his luck didn't change, and fast. Finally, it did.
When I reached Marian by cellphone to talk about her gift, she was a passenger in a friend's car and happily on her way to enjoy a little rest and relaxation in New York's wine country. The sun was shining, the breeze was blowing, stand-still traffic on Route 476 finally had opened up, and they were cruising. She was feeling good.
Wasn't she nervous about the surgery looming?
"I'm actually pretty excited," she said.
The docs at Penn were thorough. Marian briefly met Jerry and is even more sure of her decision to assist him. And really, she said, this is laparoscopic surgery, not nearly as scary as it sounds.
"I feel like people can do more for each other. We're all connected. This is for me, too. I feel great about it."
Marian's mother, she conceded, shared some very strong reservations when she broached the idea with her. But she came around once she realized Marian would follow her heart, no matter her concern. Her brother and dad also are good with the idea. The same for aunts and uncles. And so it's a go, and Marian, like Jerry, will have lots of support.
She pointed out before I wished her well and hung up that Jerry and Linda never fail in interviews to talk about organ donation and donor awareness for others. Once Jerry is well again, he'll be a great spokesman for the cause.
In that way, Marian's gift will benefit people she won't ever know about, but to whom she is connected just the same. No wonder she's feeling on top of the world.

Kate Fratti's column appears weekly.

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