3 Kidz

no...no, we are not having twins.

but rather i'm referring to my hubby's insides.

he's got 3 kid's in there!

kidneys that is.

for those of you that haven't heard d's kidney story,

(and a refresher course for those that have)

i'm going to share it with you today.

why today?? you ask....

because it's the 2 year anniversary of the transplant!!

 

so it all began way back in the day when danny was a little 14 yr old lad.

he was playing basketball and took a kidney shot.

the next day he started peeing blood. wowzers!

his dad took him to the doc which told him he had a mild kidney disorder.

nothing to worry about.

very common in teenage boys

and he would grow out of it.

fast forward to his early 20's.

(that's the approximate age he can come up with. horrible memory i tell you!)

he was playing softball

and couldn't see A THING.

so what's a boy to do?

he called the eye doctor because he thought he suddenly needed glasses.

first eye doc said he had a possible detached retina and sent him to a specialist.

nope, no detached retina.

but the doctor decided to take his BP.

it was sky high!

and that stupid doc let him leave his office with his BP 200-something over 100-something

(for those not in the medical field, that WAY too high)

and told him to follow up with his primary care doc about the high BP.

on his 45 min drive home ,

his dad called his uncle who's a paramedic,

who then made danny go straight to the ER with his dad and brother.

he was quickly wisked to a room.

as the nurse rubbed gel on his chest trying to help his heart relax,

she says "hm...i've never seen this not work before."

(always reassuring to hear)

he was then rushed from our little home-town hospital

to the big city of STL by ambulance.

he was then taken straight to the ICU where he found out,

he was in renal failure!

the next day they did a kidney biopsy and was diagnosed with

IGA nephropathy.

also known as Berger's syndrome.

yep, thats right, Berger my maiden name.
it's fate :)

the definition can be found by clicking HERE.

so he was put on a butt load of medicine and told that

SOME DAY

he would need a transplant.

this disease is usually slow progessing and most people never need any treatment for it.

he unfortunately had a bad case of it

and would slowly lose kidney function.

we went months/years watching his creatinine level slowly increase

(meaning his function was slowly decreasing)

and in the summer of '07 his function had dropped below 20%

making him eligble to apply to put his name on the list.

see now, not everyone gets to even be ON the list.

you have to like 'try out'.

make sure you don't have any other infections, or other diseases,

and your body is strong enough to go through the surgery.

well my man passed with flying colors!

 and was put on the list.
November 2007.
and a mere 16 months
(average wait is 3-5 YEARS)
Danny got a call.
asking if he could come in and meet with the transplant surgeons the NEXT day.
they didn't tell him over the phone they had a potential kidney,
but just asked us to come.
we had a hunch this was it!
so i took off work and went with him to the apt the next morning.
dr. jendrisak entered the room and asked danny,
"are you busy in 3 weeks?"
"can you be  here on Feb 24th to receive live donor kidney?"
i then about jumped outta my seat and hugged the awkward man!
but i controlled my excitment and danny said,
"i think i can arrange that."


so now i'll explain how danny's transplant worked.
it's unique.
it all began with joel and rich, best friends, living in michigan.
rich had polycystic kidney disease and was in need of a transplant.
his bff joel offered to donate but wasn't a blood match.
so they were traveling to barnes jewish hospital in the stl
because they actually doing 'cross-matching' transplants
unlike any hospital in michigan.
while joel and rich were in the process of getting all necessary tests,
another man named dane was also getting tested to become an anonymous donor.
yes! he was just going to donate an organ to a complete stranger,
JUST BECAUSE!
we need more dane's in the world
(and joel's)
ok so long story short,
dane was a perfect match to rich
so then the question was presented to joel,
was he willing to now donate his kidney to a stranger that he matched
in order for his bff rich to get dane's kidney?
and thank the good lord above...
he agreed!
and danny got joel's kidney!
dane ---> rich
joel ---> danny
it was the first 'in hospital' kidney swap EVER to happened at barnes jewish hospital!
local celebs.

so that's our his story
and i'm stickin' to it.

i'll leave you with some of the photos i took during the journey.

here's danny and joel meeting for the first time, the day before surgery.

with the wifey's

sitting in the OR, waiting to get called back

talk about anticipation!

all four families meeting in the surgery waiting area.

post surgery in the icu

walking the halls only hrs after surgery.

check out that pee bag!

exactly what kidney tranplanters wanna see
means it's working!

with his boyfriend

getting ready to leave

day 5!

the fab four.

back row donors: dane & joel

front row recipients: rich & danny

so it's time to donate folks.

sign the back of your driver's license.
spread the word.

it seriously saves lives,

like my hubby's  :)

carpe diem

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