O’Neill gets gift of own life while trying to donate a kidney

[Karol]

‘A very lucky, unlucky person’
O’Neill gets gift of own life while trying to donate kidney
 
Kim Schmidt, Kearney Hub

Posted: Wednesday, November 21, 2012 3:12 pm | Updated: 3:12 pm, Wed Nov 21, 2012.
By KIM SCHMIDT Hub Staff Writer | 0 comments
KEARNEY — While trying to save the life of a stranger, Carol O’Neill ended up saving her own.
As a child, O’Neill, a Sumner native, learned bad things sometimes happen in life, but no matter what the situation, there are people willing to help. O’Neill knew she wanted to be one of those people.
Early in her nursing career at Good Samaritan Hospital in Kearney, O’Neill met a woman whose two children both had kidney disease. Around the same time, one of O’Neill’s family members made a living donation and a friend received a cadaver kidney.
The incidents caused her think about becoming a donor.
“For the first time, it made me wonder what it must be like to donate a kidney when you’re still a healthy, viable person, rather than being a donor after your death,” she said.
O’Neill contacted the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha and began the testing to become a donor.
In 2006, while organizing a kidney walk, O’Neill got reacquainted with the woman whose children, now adults, had renal disease. The woman had donated a kidney to her son, but her daughter still needed an O-negative kidney.
O’Neill has O-negative blood. It was the call she had been waiting for.
“That was the moment that I knew that her daughter was the one I would be able to donate to,” O’Neill said.
O’Neill and the potential recipient’s mother decided they wouldn’t say anything to the woman until O’Neill’s testing was complete. Because the potential recipient was already a patient at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, O’Neill went to the clinic to complete her testing.
During a chest X-ray doctors discovered O’Neill had pneumonia, although she didn’t have any symptoms except a minor nighttime cough.
“I was a very healthy person. Fit. I had no clue that I was sick. I was the picture of health,” O’Neill said. “There was nothing going on at that point that I would’ve ever visited a doctor about. I was running; I was very active.”
A tissue sample revealed O’Neill had lung cancer. She was 46.
The kidney donation was off, and O’Neill called the potential recipient’s mother and broke the news to her.
Six days later, O’Neill had surgery at the Mayo Clinic where the lower lobe of her left lung was removed. The cancer was in an early stage. The tumor was the size of a lime.
According to the American Cancer Society, smoking is the leading cause of lung cancer. However, O’Neill never smoked and was never around secondhand smoke.
O’Neill considered herself lucky because many lung cancer patients aren’t diagnosed until the disease is in advanced stages.
“What they were seeing as pneumonia was really a tumor with pneumonia behind it,” she said. “One of the doctors told me I’m a very lucky, unlucky person.”
O’Neill returned to Kearney where she had 10 weeks of chemotherapy. She eventually met her potential recipient, who died in May 2010 at the age of 33.
For the last 6½ years, O’Neill has been cancer free, and couldn’t be more thankful to her potential recipient. Had it not been for her, O’Neill said, she would’ve never received an early diagnosis.
“The wonderful thing for me was that she understood that somebody wanted to genuinely help her, wanted to be her donor, and actively took the steps to do that. But it was really (the potential recipient) who really helped me,” O’Neill said.
“By me taking that step to help her, I would not have been diagnosed at that stage. (The potential recipient) got it that she helped me, and that was a tremendously meaningful thing for her. She had been able to be my hero.”
O’Neill stresses the importance of people being vigilant about their health, living a healthy lifestyle and, if they have any medical condition that can’t be explained, have it checked out.
“At 6½ years out, I’m extremely fortunate. Looking back on how this all happened, I can’t explain it, I don’t understand it. I’m obviously grateful for it. But it certainly seems like there was an orchestration almost, and that involved a lot of people.”
For the last two years, O’Neill has been one of two Outreach Oncology nurse coordinators at Good Sam educating people about cancer and living a healthy lifestyle. She also remains passionate about giving the gift of organ donation.
“Make a decision to change, and do it,” O’Neill said. “We can’t go back and make the decisions we’ve made in the past. What we can do is re-evaluate what we’re doing and make a healthier, better choice for going forward.”
November is Lung Cancer Awareness month. Anyone interested in having a presentation about cancer-related topics can contact O’Neill at 308-865-7293.
email to:
kim.schmidt@kearneyhub.com

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