Paired kidney donations save two lives, enrich two others

[Clark]

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20110701/NEWS/107010346/-1/gallery_array/Paired-kidney-donations-save-two-lives-enrich-two-others

Paired kidney donations save two lives, enrich two others
by REID FORGRAVE

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Simply put, this was no way to live, sitting on the waiting list for a transplant, going downhill.

And then, a year ago, a savior appeared.

His name was Rod Simpson. He worked at Iowa State University, and he was friends with one of Helen's three sons, Brian. He was playing pool with Brian one day when Brian told of his mother's struggles to find a kidney donor. "Would she want one of mine?" Simpson asked.

The surgery was set for March. She was ecstatic, a new chance at a normal life. Then, the day before the procedure, bad news: A test showed Helen's blood had developed antibodies that would make a donation from Rod impossible.

"It was like running into a wall," Helen said. "It was resignation, the belief that God said this was not the right time."

And then, the same week her transplant was canceled, another man came walking into Iowa Methodist Medical Center's transplant center in Des Moines. He was tall and thin, with a big, kind heart, and more important, two big, strong kidneys. The stranger was Helen's second savior.

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The problem with kidney transplants? Finding a compatible donor.

"We don't want you to put on a billboard that you need a kidney, but short of that, go for it," said Nicole Patterson, transplant coordinator for Iowa Methodist's transplant center, which does about 25 kidney donations a year.

Sometimes, a willing donor turns out to have a blood type that lessens the probability of success for a transplant. It's like being tossed a life preserver, then having the rope snap - hope turns into hopelessness. That's what happened to Helen.

That hope can be preserved, however, through paired donations. That's when someone who needs a kidney finds a donor, typically a family member, sometimes a friend, but the kidney isn't a match. The donor agrees to give a kidney to a stranger, with the understanding that another kidney will be found for the donor's loved one. It's like paying a kidney forward.

In Helen's case, one year ago, she didn't really know Rod Simpson. She was grateful for his selflessness, and she was heartbroken when the transplant was canceled.

Then a man named Marvin Harger - a 60-year-old Urbandale man whom Drake had absolutely zero connection to - kept thinking of a film he'd seen called "Seven Pounds," where a man sought redemption by offering his organs to seven worthy recipients. Marvin was a person who, after a friend who was an avid platelet donor died in an accident a few years ago, signed up for his first apheresis platelet donation the day after his friend's funeral. He's donated platelets in his friend's honor twice a month since then.

After watching the film, Marvin couldn't get organ donation out of his head. He researched organ donations. He read websites where people discussed how much they hated dialysis.

He thought, "I can do this." As a Christian, he had this overwhelming spiritual tug, as if someone else's name were written on one of his kidneys. The decision was easy.

The same week that Helen's transplant fell through, Marvin contacted the transplant center, timing that Helen would come to see as more than coincidence. It was God's hand at work.

"This whole thing should have never happened," Patterson said. "But it did."