10 Years Later: A patient’s transplant story in her own words
I call it a God thing. Really, two God things. Both of them involve transplants. Both were gifts of life. And they happened a little over five years apart.
The first one came in 2005, not long after my son Jerry turned 15. He was a freshman at Lamar High School in Houston, Texas and had just gotten his driver’s license. He came up and asked, ‘Mom, can I put that I want to be an organ donor on my license?” I said “absolutely.”
A few months later, he was killed in a ski accident in Breckenridge during a trip with his youth group from Houston’s St. Luke’s Methodist Church. The first call I got after it all happened was from the transplant people in Colorado. They said, “We were calling to see if…” They didn’t get any further. I just said “absolutely.” Those were his wishes. That’s what he wanted. I didn’t have to think twice about it. Because he was killed instantly on the ski run, his heart, lungs and other organs weren’t viable for transplant. But we were able to give his eyes, bone, tissue and skin.
A year later, I was diagnosed with lupus and medullary sponge kidney, which means your kidneys have holes in them. I was fortunate that I was able to do peritoneal dialysis at home at each night, so I slept hooked up to a machine for eight hours. I can’t say it was horrible, because I was able to travel in the United States. They would send my machine and take care of everything I needed. So, I was very lucky, but not everybody can do it like that. When I started the transplant process and people were tested to be a donor, the program wanted a 100 percent match. It was very difficult to find. They told me that finding a match would be nearly impossible.
But in 2009 — about three years into the dialysis — I was visiting my sister in Port Aransas and met at friend of hers who had undergone a kidney transplant in San Antonio. I was on the transplant list in Houston, but I wasn’t getting any matches. She told me I really needed to talk to Dr. Adam Bingaman, the surgeon who did her transplant. He had pioneered a successful, paired exchange transplant program that was not available in Houston. At Thanksgiving, we were back down in Port A, and I saw that Dr. Bingaman was having a clinic in Corpus Christi, so I thought, well, I’ll just go down and meet him. Why not? My husband Tom and I went to the clinic together. Dr. Bingaman was young and bold, and after explaining everything, he told me “I can have you a kidney within 10 months.” When we left, I told Tom this guy was going to do just what he said. And he did.
Ten months later, Dr. Bingaman did the transplant at Methodist Hospital | Specialty and Transplant in San Antonio. I was part of a 3-way exchange. My donor’s kidney went to someone else, and I got a kidney from an unknown donor who was a better match. The surgeries were all done at the same time. If someone had gotten sick, it would have ruined the chain, but they didn’t. After the surgery, I had to go to San Antonio for checkups three times a year. Now, I only have an annual checkup, and it’s here in Houston.
I have to tell you, one of my favorite stories from my transplant floor was about a teenager who was on dialysis, and doctors were telling him he would be on it the rest of his life. His mother researched transplants and found Dr. Bingaman, and we were transplanted the same week. It was amazing. He was able to play sports afterward, and he’s living a great life now. So am I. I have my life back. I’m blessed. To this day, I don’t know who donated to me or any of the people whose lives were touched by my son Jerry’s donation. It doesn’t matter. That the donations happened does. I look back now, and it’s just pretty amazing the way everything came together. Both times. Now you know why I call them God things.