A gift in more ways than one

A gift in more ways than one
Son gives his mom the gift of life with kidney donation
By Mike Moore
Journal Times
Saturday, February 28, 2009 11:39 PM CST

RACINE — As they see it, this kidney transplant provided gifts for the whole family.

Dorothy Davis got a revitalized body. Her son Donnie Jackson, who donated the kidney, improved the odds of keeping his mother around longer. And Jackson’s wife, Jackie, got to see them exchange the present she couldn’t give her own son.

Mother and son are out of the hospital after the Feb. 11 transplant, with no visible complications. A doctor at Froedtert Hospital in Wauwatosa told them it was the most seamless transplant he had seen in decades.

Davis, 59, suffers from lupus and had been on dialysis treatments three days a week since 1996. That was a deflating routine for a woman who once prided herself in doing auto-assembly tasks considered off-limits to female workers.

The Jacksons plan to stay with Davis at her Racine apartment a few more days before heading home to Minneapolis. For the first time in years, Davis could soon visit. Previously, traveling meant scheduling time at a dialysis center and coordinating plans with insurance companies.

“I didn’t want to put anybody through all that hassle, so I just stayed around here,” Davis said.

Donnie Jackson, 39, said it was worth months of testing to help his mother, who largely raised him alone. Doctors made sure he was healthy enough to withstand the procedure, even ordering radiation tests. Jackson joked that security guards approached his pregnant niece and him in a Minneapolis hospital, concerned they were registering on radiation sensors.

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“She took really good care of me, man,” he said of Davis. “If I can keep her around as long as possible, that’s it.”

It’s not uncommon for that gift to be handed up a generation. In the past 20 years, more than 350 people have donated kidneys to their biological parents in Wisconsin alone, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.

This one means something extra to the 44-year-old Jackie Jackson, whose son, Anthony Curry, was born with a kidney disease. Only a teenager when Davis began her treatments, Curry already had years of experience in dialysis and promised to walk her through it.

Jackie wanted deeply to help him but wasn’t a match for a kidney transplant, so he had to wait his turn on the national list. Eventually he got a kidney from a dying stranger. It stuck for several years, but Curry died in 2005 at age 23 of complications from his illness.

So, despite the risks, she was fully supportive of husband Donnie’s decision to be a donor to his mother.

“This is like my glory, my reward with them,” she said. “She keeps the family going.”

After two firsthand brushes with organ donation, she wishes more people could understand the importance of it before the situation strikes them personally.

“When you die, God just wants your soul,” Jackie said.

Not the organs, in other words. They’ve still got work to do.

http://www.journaltimes.com/articles/2009/03/01/local_news/doc49a9f27aa70ce445663884.txt