The Lewis family is looking forward to a peaceful Thanksgiving
after spending the last few holidays in emergency rooms.
GILROY
The Lewis family is looking forward to a peaceful Thanksgiving after spending the last few holidays in emergency rooms.
Tom Lewis, 61, knew from the time he was in high school that he had polycystic kidney disease, an ailment with no treatment or cure that affects 600,000 Americans. PKD is a genetic kidney disorder characterized by the presence of multiple cysts that cover the kidneys and often results in chronic renal failure.
Although Lewis learned to live with the disease, avoiding contact sports and certain foods, his PKD took a turn for the worse about 10 years ago. Since then, he has endured scorching fevers, kidneys functioning at only 5 percent of normal, a blood infection, pneumonia and far too many holidays in the hospital.
“It’s scary when you walk into the hospital and know all the nurses by their first names,” he said.
With a foot-long scar and two scars the size quarters on the inside of his left bicep from dialysis treatment, Lewis has lasting battle wounds from his disease. He went to the dialysis clinic three times a week so that a machine could filter the toxins from his blood, a job for which he could no longer rely on his own kidneys. The long scar was from the doctors “rerouting” a vein so that its was positioned higher up and more accessible for the multitude of needles and tubes that would probe his arm. The two quarter-sized scars are a result of the incisions doctors made to filter the blood in and out of his body.
Thanksgiving this year will be different because of a procedure that took place over the summer. At 9:30 p.m. July 17, Lewis’ wife, Joanie Lewis, received a phone call that “sounded important,” she said. “I thought, ‘I bet it’s a transplant.’ ” She handed the phone to her husband and the next night, Tom Lewis was on the operating table at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, receiving a transplant.
Now Tom Lewis has three kidneys, takes an assortment of about 30 pills a day and it “gets a little crowded when I bend over,” he said, but he’s feeling better than ever.
“It’s a perfect match,” he said. “It wouldn’t be better if it was my own.”
A Gilroy native, Lewis and his wife of 41 years, their two sons – Rick and Randy, four grandchildren and relatives will spend the Thanksgiving holiday together, enjoying the day free of sirens, ambulances and emergency rooms. Older son Rick Lewis, 36, lives next door to his parents and will be hosting the festivities.
“Dad was in the tank and now he’s brand new. The kids really helped him,” Rick Lewis said of his father’s four grandchildren. “The day of the surgery, we had Dad back.”
“The last three years have been really bad,” Joanie Lewis said. An integral part in her husband’s daily routine of dealing with PKD, she said she put up with a lot of blood over the years. “You do what you have to do.” She remembers the night of her husbands surgery and was amazed at her husband’s short recovery time.
“His color was back almost immediately. His face used to be gray. The kidney was working before they even sewed him back up,” she said.
A volunteer docent at Gilroy Gardens, Tom Lewis no longer works at Johnson’s Lumber, where he worked the eight years leading up to his surgery. He is enjoying his retirement, spending time with his family and relishing his newfound health. The proud owner of a Harley Davidson, he rides with his sons and is “having a ball with it,” he said.
“We can go riding again,” Rick Lewis said. “Dad’s riding his bike more than me and Randy put together.”
Younger son Randy Lewis, 34, also has the disease that landed his father in such a dire predicament. He’s known for about eight years that he has it and said it’s a “waiting game.” At this point, his kidneys are too healthy for him to put his name on a donor list.
Tom Lewis does not know the donor of his kidney but he and his wife hope to contact the donor’s family. The Lewises know that the kidney came from a young donor, probably younger than 30, and that it came from Oklahoma. They sent a letter of thanks with their contact information to their coordinator with the hopes that it will be forwarded on to the family. “The ball’s in their court,” Tom Lewis said.
The Lewis family agreed they all have quite a bit to be thankful for this holiday season.
“There won’t be any lights or sirens this year,” Rick Lewis said. “Everyone’s so happy.”
