Floyd County woman's failed match helps achieve chain of kidney donations

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Floyd County woman's failed match helps achieve chain of kidney donations

MATT GENTRY | The Roanoke Times
Denna Harris talks with Floyd County High School Principal Tony Deibler. “When things fell through most people would say, ‘I did my best and that’s it,’ but she did more,” Deibler says. “She’s an incredible person.”

Posted: Saturday, April 25, 2015 5:00 am
By Travis Williams travis.williams@roanoke.com 381-1643


FLOYD — Denna Harris had a plan.
Last summer, the longtime Floyd County High School secretary was scheduled to donate her kidney to her cousin, Chelsea Hodges, and make good on a promise of 13 years.
But the plan failed.
“Literally two days before we were supposed to have surgery, UVa called me and told me our final cross-match came back with my blood reacting to hers,” Hodges, 22, said.
The news that Hodges’ body would likely reject the organ was devastating to Harris, she said. But that didn’t stop her commitment to give.
In March, the National Kidney Registry completed its largest ever multi-center kidney swap, transplanting 34 kidneys in 25 transplant centers across the country — and Harris was ninth in the complex chain of exchanges among strangers. Today, she’s told, her kidney is currently doing well with its new owner in Colorado.
“I just really felt like that might have been God’s plan all along,” Harris said.
Plan A to Plan B
Hodges, now a senior at Liberty University, said from the time she was diagnosed with Alports syndrome, which is often characterized by kidney disease, at the age of 8 she knew she’d need a kidney at some point in her early 20s and that Harris would volunteer to donate.
“She always said if I needed a kidney, she wanted to be the one to do it,” Hodges said.
When Hodges’ kidney function dropped to 15 percent in December 2013, she said she was told to start looking for donors. In keeping with her promise, Harris quickly stepped up and began the process of extensive testing to ensure the two were compatible.
“It seemed like a miracle because she was making it through everything,” Hodges said.
During that time, Hodges said, the two grew closer than they had ever been before and bonded over their mutual Christian faith.
“It’s kind of hard to explain, but I developed this emotional attachment to her because here is this woman ready to give everything to me and she wanted nothing in return,” Hodges said.
She said learning she wouldn’t be able to accept Harris’ kidney was heartbreaking, but the pair agreed to take the news with a positive twist and believe there was a reason for their troubles.
Hodges found another match with family friend Heather Corcoran and had a successful transplant on Aug. 28.
Shortly after Harris reaffirmed her decision to donate a kidney she said she called UVa to inform them she wanted to give to another person.
“I just felt like there was a purpose, there was a reason I went through six months of testing,” Harris said.
The chain
The Charlottesville transplant center is one of 73 transplant centers that work with the Long Island-based nonprofit, National Kidney Registry.
Founded in 2008, the National Kidney Registry’s purpose is to connect people who need kidneys, but have no compatible donor within their network of friends and family, with other donors in similar situations. The donors most often agree to give based on the guarantee their loved ones will receive a matching organ as well, which results in receipt-donor chain that can cross the country multiple times.
“I always joke with hospitals that rarely do the matches come from less than 1,000 miles away,” said Joe Sinacore, the group’s director of education and development.
Sinacore said each chain begins with a “good Samaritan donor,” a person donating, but not connected to a person receiving an organ, and the entire chain can fall apart if a single party becomes ill or backs out of the procedure. He said the donor’s medical costs are covered by the recipient’s insurance, which is most often Medicare.
As of this week, he said the organization had completed 252 chains, had four active chains, and had facilitated more than 1,300 transplants.
According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, there are currently more than 101,600 people in America waiting for a new kidney.
Through the registry knows plenty about the organs it’s help- ing to shift across the country, the organization rarely knows the recipient-donor relationship beyond what’s listed in the paperwork.
According to a document provided by Sinacore, the box for Harris and the person she was paired with at UVa simply reads, “other.” With no other identification listed, the document shows one kidney came to UVa from Wisconsin on Jan. 8 and one kidney left that day, bound for Porter Adventist Hospital in Denver.
Harris said she didn’t even know the gender of the kidney recipient she was paired with in Charlottesville or Denver due to hospital regulations, but had exchanged anonymous letters with the latter.
“Your kidney is functioning wonderfully,” said the letter Harris shared with The Roanoke Times.
“I too hope we can meet someday soon. I would love to thank you in person for giving me my life back.”
Harris said it was her understanding that once a year passes from the time of the surgery, the recipient would be given her contact information.
People around the New River Vally have noticed Harris’ act of selflessness.
Floyd County High School principal Tony Deibler said he first learned of his secretary’s act at church and was a little surprised to learn she was going through with the procedure for a stranger after her original plan failed.
“When things fell through most people would say, ‘I did my best and that’s it,’ but she did more,” Deibler said. “She’s an incredible person.”
Harris returned to work four weeks after her surgery and said other than having to reduce her caffeine and eliminate any use of ibuprofen, she wanted people to know donating a kidney hadn’t negatively affected her at all.
One person who wasn’t surprised at Harris’ willingness to give an organ to a stranger was Hodges.
“Her heart had been prepared to give it away and when that door was shut she felt like it wasn’t hers to keep,” Hodges said.
“I just knew who ever got it would be blessed by it.”

http://www.roanoke.com/news/local/floyd_county/failed-match-helps-achieve-chain-of-kidney-donations/article_8d001a0e-0b47-5a70-9126-91faff5cc8fa.html