Facebook helps ill Holly Hill man find kidney donor

Facebook helps ill Holly Hill man find kidney donor
High school friend in New York 'perfect match'
BY JULIE MURPHY, STAFF WRITER
August 13, 2012 12:45 AM

Facebook may be the greatest blessing Charles "Chuck" Ickes has had in his life.

The social networking Internet site allowed him to reconnect with a high school friend in New York who is donating a kidney to him for no other reason than she can.

"People ask me all the time, 'Why are you doing this?'" Sandi Dykstra McLean said Sunday by phone from East Rochester, N.Y. "The answer is 'Why not?' If you can help someone to live and see the result of it, then why wouldn't you do it?"

Ickes, a Navy veteran and a sheriff's deputy who worked for both Seminole County and Flagler County, had nothing but time on his hands after he was diagnosed with kidney failure in 2008 and went online.

"I thought it was just because of my job, but I was always feeling weak and tired. Then I started throwing up. It got so bad that I went to the emergency room. Now I've been on dialysis three times a week for the past four years," the Holly Hill resident said by phone Sunday from New York where he is visiting his father. "There wasn't a lot else I could do. I had a lot of free time."

The 43-year-old found friends who served with him during his Desert Storm and operation Provide Comfort, as well as Olean (N.Y.) Senior High School. Dykstra McLean among them.

"We started talking, and then she came to Daytona Beach for a visit," Ickes said. "She hinted that she would test, but I sure didn't want to be pushy about it."

Dykstra McLean, who has 20- and 23-year-old daughters, remembers the story somewhat differently.

"He finally agreed to let me test," she said. "It was when I visited him that I realized he was really ill. He (is) worried about me, but I know it's the right thing to do."

Family and her employers at the Town Village of East Rochester where she has worked for the past seven years are "totally supportive," she said.

"It's been wonderful," Dykstra McLean said. "My daughters are fine with it. My employers don't have any issues."

Ickes and Dykstra McLean found out July 3 after 10 days of extensive blood and tissue testing that she is a "complete match." They'll travel to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for the transplant surgery on Oct. 2.

"I'm ready for this in six weeks," Dykstra McLean said. "I hope that he will be so much healthier. That he'll be like he used to be -- full of energy."

Ickes doesn't have concern for himself, but does have concern for his friend.

"I have pretty good insurance through the (Seminole County) Sheriff's Office, but I worry what will happen if Sandi has complications," he said. "She'd have to go back to the Mayo Clinic. Well, I just worry."

Donations to help cover any potential medical problems can be made through the nonprofit HelpHOPELive at www.helphopelive.org or by phone at 800-642-8399. The only information required is Ickes' name.

The schoolmates, who recently celebrated their 25-year class reunion, said they were friends but not best friends while they were in school.

Ickes said he sat behind Dykstra McLean and sang songs from the "Grease" soundtrack.

"I would do this until I aggravated her so much that she'd have to turn around and tell me to shut up," he said.

"I can't believe he remembers that," she said later when asked about it.

"I was going through a divorce when we started talking and he was my rock," Dykstra McLean said of her friend.

"He is a wonderful person and I'm just really glad to be able to do this for him. He was 39 years old when he got this. He's still got a lot of life to live. There are so many people who die on the waiting list. It's really a great thing if you can do a live donation."

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