More than a listening ear

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FRIDAY MARCH 14, 2008 Last modified: Friday, March 14, 2008 9:08 AM CDT

Varness lends more than a listening ear

By MEGAN BORCHERS
Marketing and Web Coordinator

As a wife, mother and grandmother, Gloria Varness counts her blessings daily. This past November was no exception.

Varness, a third-grade teacher at White Oak Elementary School in Morris, was visiting long-time friend and former colleague Linda Terramiggi last June when Terramiggi began telling her about the health issues she was experiencing.

“She was sharing how she had an overnight dialysis machine and how hard it is to visit her grandchild on dialysis,” Varness said. “She had to plan so far ahead to do something as simple as get on an airplane, in order for her to have the dialysis machine delivered to her upon her arrival.”

When asked what it would take to get off the dialysis machine, Terramiggi told Varness she would need a kidney transplant.

Unfortunately, Terramiggi's own family members were experiencing health issues of their own, making them not viable candidates for donation.

The options and hope for Terramiggi to find a transplant donor seemed limited.

“I simply asked what the first step was for transplant donation,” Varness recalls. “She told me you have to be concerned about blood type first, and mine is kind of rare, so this will probably never happen for me.”

As it turns out, Varness and Terramiggi had more in common than teaching at the same school years ago - they both had the same fairly rare blood type, B-Positive.

What Varness did next was more that just lend a listening ear to her friend. She offered her own kidney to be transplanted into Terramiggi.

Varness says she will always remember the look Terramiggi gave her.

“I am a Christian,” Varness says, leaning on her faith. “I told myself, if I am suppose to do this, God will continue to open doors until he closes one.”

As an educator, it was important for Varness to understand exactly what the kidney transplant surgery would entail in order to prepare not just herself, but her family as well.

“My family questioned what would happen if I ever needed a kidney donation later in life,” Varness recalls. “They told me, as a donor, I would go to the top of the list. It was important for them to understand all of this, too. After all, they, too, were offering up their mother and wife.”

After receiving an information packet from Northwestern Hospital in Chicago - which Varness credits for wonderful care - the process began. That process, which included having blood taken and tested, also included looking at not just the physical health, but mental as well.

A social worker talked with Varness about the possibility that her kidney could be rejected by Terramigg's body.

“Then, at least, I know I did what I could,” Varness said about the possibility of rejection.

To date, Terramiggi's new kidney is functioning very well.

“I don't want people to look at this as, ‘Wow, look at me',”Varness said. “I want to educate and bring awareness to organ transplants.”

As a teacher, it was important for Varness to tell her students what she was doing and why she would be out of the classroom for a couple of days.

“The social worker encouraged me to share as much as I felt comfortable talking to them about,” Varness said. “I told my class what I was doing. That night a student went home and told their parents that I was donating all of my organs!”

Both White Oak School and Varness' classroom have been extremely supportive, but it was the support of Varness' family, especially her husband, Rollin, and children, that she credits.

“I got flowers in the hospital from my daughter that said not just, ‘I love you,' but ‘I am proud of you,'” Varness said. “That was a great feeling.”

For Varness, her one-night stay in the hospital was not very invasive. She said she did feel uncomfortable the first day, but the process was fairly straight forward.

“I didn't have stitches because everything was laparoscopic, so they basically glued me shut. They have come so far in this surgery. It is not what it once use to be.”

Varness said kidney transplant surgeries have been stereotyped as very painful and harder on the donor than the recipient. She says that through her personal experience, this was not the case.

Another factor Varness had to take into consideration was insurance. She said Terramiggi's insurance covered everything and she never saw a bill.

“I would not hesitate to encourage kidney transplant donation,” Varness said. “I have no sensations that I have lost a kidney, everything functions the way it did before. Plus, to hear how well my kidney - I mean my old kidney - is doing in Linda's body is so exciting.”

The biggest factor for Varness, as a grandmother herself, was that Terramiggi was not able to visit her grandchild as easily as most grandparents.

Terramiggi is now planning a trip later this spring to visit her grandson in Houston.

“From one grandmother to another this was just something that I could do for her.”

Kidney Facts

- Today, March 13, is World Kidney Day

- Over 95,000 U.S. patients are currently waiting for an organ transplant; nearly 4,000 new patients are added to the waiting list each month.

- Every day, 17 people die while waiting for a transplant of a vital organ, such as a heart, liver, kidney, pancreas, lung or bone marrow.

- Acceptable organ donors can range in age from newborn to 65 years or more. People who are 65 years of age or older may be acceptable donors, particularly of corneas, skin, bone and for total body donation.

- Donor organs are matched to waiting recipients by a national computer registry, called the National Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN). This computer registry is operated by an organization known as the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), which is located in Richmond, Va.

- About 94.5 percent of the kidneys transplanted from cadavers (persons who died recently) are still functioning well at one year after surgery. The results are even better for kidneys transplanted from living donors. One year after surgery, 97.96 percent of these kidneys were still functioning well.

Source: www.kidney.org

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