With nearly 95,000 people waiting for an organ, finding that one
‘match’ can be a lifesaver
Dottie Stewart thought an Elvis impersonator won her heart about 10 years ago with an impromptu serenade of “Love me Tender.” But, she jokes, it turns out he won her kidney instead.
Dottie didn’t know Donald “Elvis” Prieto when he sang to her at her office back then, but she and her husband Mark became friends with Donald over the years through their church, Foothills Foursquare Church in Gilroy, and by seeing him at his family’s business, Victoria’s Mexican Restaurant, in Gilroy. She knew he’d had a kidney and pancreas transplant about seven years ago because he’s had type-one diabetes since age 7.
The organs, which came from a man who died in a motorcycle accident, saved Donald from suffering through kidney dialysis multiple times a week, allowed him to stop taking dozens of pills every day and stop his insulin injections. But about a year ago, his transplanted kidney started to fail. He needed a new transplant, but, one by one, his family members were disqualified as potential donors.
“I ran into Mark one day and I mentioned that I was back on dialysis and that it was pretty hard on me,” said Donald, 39. “And Mark said, ‘If you need a kidney, I’ll give you one of mine.’ But he wasn’t the same blood type as me. That’s when Dottie said she wanted to try. She ended up being an almost perfect match.”
The surgery is scheduled for Dec. 15. Dottie, 53, said she didn’t think twice about offering her kidney to Donald. She believes God gave her two kidneys so she can give one away.
“I’m not scared at all – I think this whole thing was absolutely meant to be,” she said. “I think this is truly an awesome honor and a privilege. I’m donating a kidney to a friend and I know that it will help him in so many ways.”
If more people had Dottie’s attitude toward donation, the United Network of Organ Sharing organ transplant waiting list wouldn’t be pushing 95,000 people, said Dr. Peter Stock, professor of surgery at University of California, San Francisco. The school’s medical center is considered by many to be Northern California’s premiere organ transplant center. Since 1990, Stock said he’s probably done more than a thousand organ transplants.
“Right now when someone goes on the waiting list, I can give them an idea as of today about what their wait is going to be like,” Stock said. “A person waiting for a kidney with blood type O, they’re looking at six to seven years. Someone with type A may be four years. The wait time depends on a lot of things – what kind of organ the person needs, how old they are, how sick they are – but they all will have a while to wait. Some just wait longer than others.”
The wait time for life-saving organ transplants would be reduced if more people were tested to see if they were a match for family or close friends. Wait time would also diminish if more people signed up to be organ donors when they die. About 17 people die every day waiting for an organ transplant, according to UNOS.
The California Transplant Donor Network is the link between doctors with patients waiting for transplants and the families of organ donors.
When a doctor has a patient they know will not survive, they verify the person is an organ donor or ask family members if they’d be willing to donate their loved one’s organs to those who need them, explained Jennifer McGehee, spokesperson for the CTDN.
“If the person is a donor, the doctor calls us and we see who’s next on the waiting list that is a potential match,” McGehee said. “We get in touch with that patient’s doctor and begin to see if this match is good enough to work. Once that’s established, we get that organ to the patient who’s waiting. Sometimes we fly the organs, sometimes we drive them – the important thing is that we get them there fast. It’s very precious cargo.”
In July, the California Department of Motor Vehicles made it even easier to register as an organ donor. Aside from putting the donor sticker on your driver’s license, people can register at www.donatelifecalifornia.org. People can choose specific organs to donate and e-mail loved ones to ensure their wishes are known.
People in need of a transplant can receive organs from an unrelated donor, or a donor of a different gender or race. Very few things, such as being HIV positive, make people ineligible to be a donor, said David Heneghan, also a spokesperson for CTDN.
“People think, ‘I’m too old’ or ‘They wouldn’t want my organs,’ but medicine is constantly evolving and they’ve been able to transplant organs now that they couldn’t have five years ago,” Heneghan said. “Someone can save up to eight lives and improve the lives of up to 50 people. Don’t take yourself off the list – at least give the doctors a chance.”
Because organs are so valuable to so many people, patients waiting for a transplant go through a long screening process before receiving a transplant. For example, if someone damaged their liver because of alcoholism and now needs a transplant, the patient will have random blood tests to ensure they have stopped drinking before receiving a new liver. As of now, smokers and alcoholics must prove they’ve abstained from smoking and drinking for six months, though Stock believes this rule should be stricter.
“It’s a terribly fine line – we want to be very careful,” he said. “That’s why we make sure patients interact with a social worker and undergo psych evaluations. We want to make sure a change in lifestyle has happened before we commit to giving this person an organ when (organs) are so few and far between.”
For ethical reasons, most organ transplants are conducted with cadavers. Live donations, such as the case with Donald and Dottie, are generally only done between family members or good friends. The medical community fears a living stranger that gave someone an organ, such as a kidney, could at some point ask the recipient for payment. The medical community considers payment for organs unethical.
But the idea of demanding payment from Donald for her kidney is beyond ludicrous to Dottie.
“You know, I honestly can’t wait to have the surgery,” she said. “It’s hard to explain, but I just think this whole thing was meant to be. I believe God brought us together. Donald has a 10-year-old daughter and a fiance, and I know that once he’s had this surgery, he’s going to be able to spend more quality time with them rather than having dialysis.”
For the last six months, Dottie and Donald have had a multitude of tests to make sure Donald’s body won’t reject Dottie’s kidney. They’ve also had X-rays, psychiatric evaluations and other exams to make sure both are healthy enough for the operation. Following the surgery, both Dottie and Donald will need about four to six weeks to recover.
Hollister resident Michele Grover, 44, knows about the process from first-hand experience. She’s an assistant in one of Dottie’s doctors’ offices, and when she heard that Dottie was going to be a donor, she shared her own experience.
“I met my friend Jim Harper the very first day I arrived in California in 1982 and we’ve been friends ever since,” she said. “I heard he needed a kidney because he has a common genetic disease, polycystic kidney disease. I told him I’d be interested in helping him out. We figured out that we were both blood type A-positive and it went from there.”
Michele gave one of her kidneys to Jim on Dec. 14 of last year and she said it was one of the most fulfilling experiences of her life.
“I had a friend who had diabetes and I saw what dialysis did to her – that’s when I knew that organ donation was something I wanted to be a part of,” she said. “If more people knew how many people were suffering because they needed an organ transplant, I think more people would register to donate. God placed me in Jim’s life all those years ago, and I’m so happy I could do this for him.”
Though Jim wrote her a beautiful note the night before their surgery, Michele said the greatest “thank you” was seeing him be more active with his children and grandchildren.
“People can say ‘thank you,’ but the real payoff is watching that person live their life the way any other normal person would get to live,” she said.
Finding an adequate way to say “thank you” remains a challenge for Donald, though.
“When I got the first kidney from the man who died in the motorcycle accident, I had a hard time with it,” he said. “Someone died and because of that, I was given a great gift – a normal life. Now, Dottie is giving me one of her kidneys. Saying ‘thank you’ just doesn’t seem like enough. She’s giving me my life back.”
But Dottie waves off such sentiments with a flick of her wrist and a quick hug for Donald.
“Have you heard him sing? I figure he’ll sing to me whenever I want after this,” she said, laughing. “No, but honestly, the honor is truly mine. I can’t say that enough. It’s truly mine.”
