‘Now I have a future'

‘Now I have a future'

Smith says her energy, interests grow daily

From the News-Sentinel
Article published Aug 24, 2007

Fairfield Elementary first-grade teacher Colleen Smith was running errands after Monday's first day of school when her thoughts suddenly stopped her in her tracks: “I had this feeling of anxiety. I thought, ‘I'm going to be really late.' ”

Then she remembered: No more dialysis. No more rushing from school to the kidney dialysis center in New Haven, where three times a week, for 5 1/2 years, large needles were put in her arm to take out her blood, filter it and put it back into her body.

The every-Monday-Wednesday-Friday routine, which caused chills and painful muscle aches, lasted four to five hours. If all went well, around 10:30 p.m., she would arrive back at her apartment, tired from a day of teaching — but mostly exhausted and unable to fall asleep from the lengthy dialysis process.

On June 14, Smith, 47, became the first kidney transplant recipient at Lutheran Hospital's new kidney transplant center. Since then, four more people have received kidneys, and 25 people are on a waiting list, said Margaret Scatena, executive director of Lutheran Heart Center and Transplantation.

Outside of three Indianapolis hospitals, Lutheran is the only Indiana hospital doing kidney and heart transplants.

The Rev. Robert Martz, 47, was Smith's donor. Martz moved to Indiana from Texas last winter to become the pastor of Smith's parents' church, Topeka Mennonite. Martz had offered to donate a kidney to someone in his former community, but a better match was later found. On the Sunday he was installed as pastor in Topeka, Smith visited the church. Martz, who had earlier heard about Smith's need for a kidney, told her, “I think I have something you can use.”

Tests showed it was as good a match as a sibling, doctors told Smith and Martz.

“I hope other people will see this and think perhaps about being a donor,” Martz said, noting his recovery has gone smoothly. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, or UNOS, which tracks organ recipients and available organs, 72,712 people in the United States, including 742 Hoosiers, were waiting for a kidney as of Aug 6, the most recent data available.

“I am happy to take one person off that list,” Martz said.

On Thursday, Smith sat in her colorfully decorated classroom, making plans to apply for educational grants that offer travel opportunities, something she has not considered since kidney disease, for unknown reasons, struck 13 years ago. With newfound energy, her to-do and wish lists are growing: a week with her parents in their home on the lake; no more missed back-to-school nights or after-school teachers' meetings; Friday night movies with friends.

“I want to get a dog,” she said. “I feel like a whole new world is opening up.”

Although she considered a transplant in Indianapolis and even out of state, she said she can't now imagine traveling as far as Indianapolis for biweekly lab tests to ensure the kidney is functioning with no signs of rejection. All is well so far, and she'll soon have monthly lab work.

“From the time Robert said he would donate, I never doubted this was going to work,” Smith said.

Scatena said Lutheran is now following 120 post-operative kidney transplants who had transplants in Indianapolis in previous months or years. In addition to the 25 people given the OK for a new kidney when a matching one becomes available, another 65-70 people are undergoing medical and psychological evaluation for approval as recipients or as a living related donor or non-related living donor.

Lutheran received approval in May from UNOS to open the kidney transplant center, and the hospital will soon submit a letter to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to be a certified kidney transplant center. Three transplants had to be completed before applying for CMS certification.

Certification enables the hospital to be reimbursed by Medicare, which usually covers payment for transplants for people, even those under 65, with severe kidney disease. Currently patients' bills are covered by private insurance, although Scatena said the hospital is not turning away Medicare patients in the meantime.

In 1999, former Fort Wayne resident and nurse Joyce Roush became the first person in the United States to give her kidney laparoscopically to anyone who wanted it. At that time, only Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore would accept her as a “stranger donor.” Roush gave her kidney to 13-year-old Christopher “Bear” Bieniek of Baltimore. Since that time, donations of kidneys and liver segments by live stranger or non-related donors have become common.

Of the five transplants done so far at Lutheran, Martz is the only living unrelated donor. Two were cadaveric donors and two were living relatives.

Lutheran Hospital would not turn down a hospital-specific offer of an acceptable kidney from a live stranger-donor, Scatena said. However, UNOS, which coordinates all donors and recipients to ensure the right organs go to those in greatest need, asks centers to make available undesignated donations to the state network rather than to a specific hospital.

“But if the anonymous donor says, ‘I really want to donate a kidney and it has to be someone at Lutheran,' we would not turn it down,” she said, noting intensive medical and psychological testing are still required.

Smith thinks back to the hours of dialysis and said one of these days she will stop by the center to see patients she's known through the years - but she's not quite ready yet.

“This has changed everything for me. I was at the point where I just couldn't imagine going on. I knew I was not going to be able to teach this year,” Smith said. “Now I have a future.”

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