Cutting class to save a life

[Karol]

Cutting class to save a life
23-year-old Calhoun student donating kidney to help her ailing aunt
By Ronnie Thomas

Abi Alexander planned to start her second year of nursing school at Calhoun Community College on Tuesday.

Instead, the 2006 Austin High School graduate will check into University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital. On Wednesday, she will donate a kidney to her aunt, Myra Aldridge. Both women live in Decatur.

“I decided in April to do this,” said Alexander, 23. “Aunt Myra’s kidneys are functioning at 12 percent. She could have gotten on a list and waited for a donor, but that would have taken five to seven years. Doctors said she maybe had five years left with dialysis.”

   
Thanks to her loving niece, Aldridge, 60, never went on dialysis. Others in the family wanted to help, including Aldridge’s husband Gary and son Jason Cowan. But they have high blood pressure, which prevents them from qualifying as a match.

When Alexander stepped up, Aldridge was touched deeply.

“It’s remarkable to me that a niece would sacrifice a kidney for an aunt,” Aldridge said. “It’s wonderful for someone to love you that much.

“I told her I didn’t want her to miss school, but she was willing to do that.”

Early Wednesday, a surgical team led by Dr. Michael Hanaway will begin a three-hour transplant. It’s a delicate process and a major surgery, but Alexander is not planning to slow down.

“I will be home Friday, and I hope to return to class the next week, at least for an hour or two, or for as long as I can sit there,” Alexander said. “I have one morning class and a clinical. I haven’t got the schedule for the clinical.”

Aldridge will remain hospitalized for a week, then transfer to the townhouse inside the hospital.

Aldridge said in a way the decision “broke her heart” because the family has endured so much in a short time.

She and Alexander drove to Adam Alexander’s house in Decatur on Jan. 21, where Abi found her brother dead. He died of complications from a leaky heart valve. He was 26.

On April 11, 2010, her grandmother, Betty Shelton, 76, of Decatur, died in a traffic accident. On May 7, 2009, she lost her grandfather, Hollis Johnson, 84, also of Decatur.

The series of events has weighed on the family. Alexander’s father, Bentley Alexander of Jasper said the thought of his daughter’s generosity terrifies him. He is still mourning the loss of his son.

“But I’m very proud of Abi for being this brave,” he said. “It’s still scary for me, but she’s an adult. You have to be courageous to do that. It would be tough for me today.

“But for her to have found Adam. They say something like that you never get over. She’s just a very courageous young lady.”

Her mother, Trish Alexander of Decatur, said Abi is “one of the most unselfish persons I know.

“I know her decision came easier because she’s helping my sister. But if it were a friend, a child, anyone she knew, Abi would do it.

“Honestly, I would have to think twice about it. Abi did not bat an eye.”

She recalls the long hours her daughter devoted to becoming a match.

“She showed up for every appointment. We had to spend 12 straight hours in Birmingham for testing with a 30-minute lunch break,” she said, “and Abi was in school. She’s committed to this.”

Aldridge’s kidney problems began in June 1987, about five months before Alexander was born.

“I opened a can to scoop chlorine out for the swimming pool and inhaled the fumes,” she said. “I couldn’t get my breath.”

Her son Jason, then 15, called another aunt, and they took Aldridge to Decatur General Hospital. When she arrived, Aldridge’s feet had turned blue.

“That night, they did an X-ray,” she said. “And doctors told me that my lungs were as black as a 50-year-old smoker. Until then, I was as healthy as an ox.”

She developed severe high blood pressure and spent the next 24 years in and out of hospitals. She has had two pacemakers.

In January, a specialist told her she needed to have a port inserted and go on kidney dialysis. The next month, she got an appointment with the National Kidney Foundation at UAB, gave 26 vials of blood and watched a film. Surprisingly, she said, she learned she was healthy enough to accept a kidney, go on a list and wait for a donor.

Another niece, Stacy Patterson, tested, but high blood pressure ruled her out, too.

Question marks arose even after Alexander found she was a match in May. She takes beta-blockers for mitro-valve prolapse, the congenital leaky heart-valve condition that led to her brother’s death. It is the most common heart valve abnormality.

The valve, which separates the upper and lower chambers of the heart, doesn’t close properly.

“I had to stop taking the medication for a week and took my blood pressure periodically every day to make sure the beta-blockers weren’t masking hypertension,” she said. “That wasn’t the case, and I resumed taking the medication.”

As she considered the events of this week, Alexander remained convinced she is doing the right thing.

“Aunt Myra said she wanted me to know that if I didn’t want to go forward for whatever reason, she would completely understand,” Alexander said. “But I was the only family member left (as a match). There is no second guessing, no having to think about it.”

The gratified recipient knows how gutsy her niece is.

“Abi’s upset because she can’t watch her procedure on live video,” Aldridge said. “She didn’t realize she’d be under (anesthesia). But she’s going to try to get it on video and get a copy.”

http://www.decaturdaily.com/stories/Cutting-class-to-save-a-life,83944