Fate brings Narvon woman new friend, new lease on life

[okarol]

Fate brings Narvon woman new friend, new lease on life

 By CAROLE DECK, Correspondent
Lancaster New Era

Published: Jan 16, 2008 12:04 PM EST


Mari Bleacher will be getting a new kidney thanks to the generosity of an old acquaintance.

LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. - Mari Bleacher believes people are sometimes put in our lives for a purpose.

After being diagnosed with advanced kidney failure in August 2006, the 38-year-old Narvon woman had only one option to improve her deteriorating health — a kidney transplant.

Frightened and frustrated with her search to find a matching donor in time, Bleacher found help when a former acquaintance came back into her life.

And come Thursday, she'll have the long-awaited surgery that she hopes will give her a new lease on life.

Bleacher, originally from Sweden, met Nettie Potter, also a native of Malmo, Sweden, at the Swedish School of Philadelphia in Wayne, where Bleacher teaches one day a week. They weren't good friends, only acquaintances, and hadn't seen each other for several years.

Last January, Bleacher learned that Potter had moved to Bowmansville, just a couple of miles from her Narvon home. She contacted her and the two got together.

After talking about Bleacher's need for a kidney transplant, Potter quickly responded: "If I'm a match, you can have mine!" After testing and finding that Potter was indeed a match, Bleacher finally had the living donor she desperately needed.

That was the start of a friendship between two women who will share a life-long bond — one giving so another can receive the gift of life. Along with sharing kidneys, they are applying for dual citizenship.

"Nettie has a heart of gold," said the soft-spoken Bleacher. "I couldn't believe that this 36-year-old single mother of two children (Sarah, 11, and Bernard, 12), who I didn't really know, would want to give me her kidney."

For Potter, there was never any question about donating her kidney.

"I believe fate played a hand in bringing us together. Mari's a good person and helping her is part of my religious belief that it's the right thing to do. People have helped me out over the years, so it's right to pass it on without any expectations," she said.

Bleacher, wife of Peter and mother of two children, Jacob, 13, and Linnea, 12, was born with one kidney that was tiny and non-functional. She learned at age 4 that she had stage 3 kidney reflux and that her kidney was working at 45-percent capacity, but it would improve in time.

Until she was 17, she continually battled urinary tract inflammations. At that point her condition did improve and the routine weekly trips to the hospital were replaced with yearly ones.

During a vacation to Pennsylvania from Sweden during the summer of 1992, Bleacher met her husband at a restaurant in Sinking Spring. That November, he visited her at her home in Vellinge, Sweden. The couple married in Sinking Spring on March 12, 1993, and lived in West Reading until 1995, when they moved to Narvon.

Her health remained stable, even through her pregnancies. But in the summer of 2006 she began to feel fatigued, had no appetite and was losing weight. In August of that year, Dr. Geoffrey Teehan of Nephrology Associates of Pottstown, diagnosed her with advanced kidney failure. Teehan said her kidney at that time was functioning at 25 percent (today it's lower) and encouraged her to seek a living donor for a kidney transplant.

Bleacher thought her sister might be a match, but complications with securing the necessary documentation through customs ruled out that option.

"Kidney transplantation is not a very high-risk procedure for the recipient, but the donor must undergo a much more involved surgery due to the location of the native kidney," explained Teehan.

The risk of living with only one kidney doesn't worry Potter: "Life is uncertain and you can't live in fear . . . there's no guarantees." She's just anxious to have the surgery done to give her friend a better quality of life.

According to Teehan, recovery is also sometimes faster for the recipient. Bleacher will be hospitalized five to seven days with another month or so of taking it easy. He expects her to thrive post-operatively.

"Mari is a lovely woman who has handled her medical illness with dignity, a bright outlook and has wonderful support from her loving husband," he said.

The transplant surgery will take place Thursday at Lankenau Hospital, Wynnewood, by Dr. Francisco Badosa, surgeon and kidney transplant program director.

Bleacher's mother, Gunnel Malmqvist, will travel from Sweden to care for her daughter, while Nettie's sister, Louise Nielsen of Denmark, is coming to help her.

After her surgery, Bleacher plans to spread the word about the critical need for living donors.

According to the National Kidney Foundation, more than 95,000 U.S. patients are currently waiting for an organ transplant with 4,000 added to the waiting list each month.

Because of the lack of available donors in this country, 3,916 kidney patients, 1,570 liver patients, 356 heart patients and 245 lung patients died in 2007 while waiting for life-saving organ transplants. In 2006, 17,092 kidney transplants were done with 70,870 on the waiting list as of April 2007.

Bleacher works as a fabric manager at the Flower and Craft Warehouse, Blue Ball.

"Mari's a good worker who never complains about her illness, even when she's having a bad day. She's gracious and has endeared herself to all of us," said Thelma Coon, her boss and friend.

Coon said Bleacher's co-workers consider Potter their "personal hero."

Potter is employed as a case manager for Crump Life Insurance Services, Exton.

While Bleacher's insurance pays for the transplant for both women, there will be additional medical expenses as well as day-to-day living costs for Potter while she is off work.

Co-workers have sponsored fundraisers to help with expenses. Currently the employees are selling an angel pin with birthstones to raise funds. The pin sells for $10 with $2.50 going towards Potter's expenses. Call Thelma Coon at 355-9975 for more information.

Bleacher is looking forward to being able to eat real food and ride her horse, Freckles, again.

"Thanks to Nettie, I'll have a chance for a new life," she said.

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