Zachary Williams' Mom needed a new kidney and she was able to get one in the first three-state transplant. The article below was the headline in the W-S Journal on August 5.
A Triple Feat
First three-state kidney transplant in U.S. involved Baptist Medical Center
Published: August 5, 2008
Homer Brownlee Jr. pledged to his newlywed wife, Marilyn, that if she ever needed a kidney transplant, he'd be there for her.
Kidney problems run on both sides of their family. Marilyn's father died as a result of kidney disease, shortly after she married Brownlee in a ceremony that her father was too sick to attend.
Forty-three years later, Brownlee kept his promise -- only with a stranger's kidney.
Because his kidney turned out not to be an ideal match, the Brownlees, from Mobile, Ala., participated last Wednesday in a three-way, three-state kidney donation in the United States. Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center was one of the host sites for the surgeries.
Because Brownlee kept his promise to his wife, a local woman also has a new kidney.
Robin Graves of Winston-Salem received one of Brownlee's kidneys.
"I feel blessed to have had this man step up to the plate, as well as my best friend, to give me a chance at a better quality of life for myself and my two boys," Graves said yesterday with Brownlee sitting beside her hospital bed. She had been on dialysis for about four years.
Graves' best friend, Martha Hanson of Albuquerque, N.M., donated her kidney to a female recipient in Denver, whose husband traveled to the University of Alabama Medical Center in Birmingham, Ala., to donate a kidney to Marilyn Brownlee.
Homer Brownlee was grateful that his wife is doing well with her new kidney.
"I know it's going to mean a whole new world for my wife," Brownlee said. "You could tell she had something wrong with her because she was so tired all the time.
"Even though it's not my kidney that went into her, I suspect I'll get a bunch of hugs and kisses when I see her later this week."
The matching of the three donor-recipient pairs came through the Alliance for Paired Donation, a nonprofit group based in Toledo, Ohio, that aims to shorten the waiting time for kidney-transplant recipients. The alliance said that, on average, about 12 people waiting for a transplant die every day.
According to the alliance, there are more than 76,600 patients awaiting a transplant in the United States. By comparison, there were 16,626 transplants performed nationwide in 2007.
Sharon Alcorn, the abdominal-transplant coordinator for Baptist, said that the hospital performed 200 kidney transplants in fiscal 2007-08, which ended June 30.
The goal is to expand the donation possibilities for people who are willing to donate a kidney for a family member or friend, but are incompatible with that person.
According to WebMD.com, transplants using a kidney from a first-degree relative, such as father, mother, brother or sister, are the most successful. But a family member is not always the best match, as the key to success is having the closest possible blood and tissue matches.
In the Brownlees' case, a final test done the day before his wife's transplant surgery was scheduled in July 2007 ruled him out as a donor.
"When the whole batch of doctors handling the surgery come into the room, you know the news is not good," Brownlee said. "Yet, I knew there was going to be a kidney out there for her, and I still was willing to donate one of mine to someone who I was a good match for."
The key to the three-way donation was that, for ethical reasons, each donor had to be put under anesthesia at the same time even though the surgeries were taking place in Winston-Salem, Birmingham and Aurora, Colo.
That way, if one donor had backed out, all of the surgeries would have been called off.
"Simple two-way swaps are pretty easy to arrange," said Dr. Michael Rees, the medical director for the alliance. "This exchange was a bit more complicated because it involved three pairs whose recipients could not have found a match if we had only performed two-way exchanges.
"The fact that each center is in a different state and time zone made the logistics more challenging."
Brownlee said he had to go through a large battery of tests over the course of a year before he was deemed healthy enough to donate his kidney to Graves.
"I think they checked everything out in me and on me except my toenails, and they may still come after them before I leave," he said.
"I knew once I was cleared the first time to be a donor that I had to do it -- no backing out. Even though it was a roundabout way of getting Marilyn her kidney, it's all been worth it."
Dr. Carl Westcott, a member of Baptist's laparoscopic-surgery service who performed the surgery on Brownlee, said he hopes that more three-way transplants can be done.
"It's difficult for the donor since they likely are away from their family and community support when they undergo the surgery," Westcott said.
"But with this method in place, we hope it will make a dent in the waiting list for transplants since living donated kidneys tend to last twice as long as those taken from a cadaver."
Graves said she hopes that her story will inspire people "to not let the fear of donating a kidney stop them from giving the gift of life to others."
"Being on dialysis, while it keeps you alive, is a terrible quality of life because it makes you so weak," Graves said. "Even then, if a transplant hadn't come along, eventually I knew I was going to die.
"Even though it will take me months to recover, mentally I know I have my life back. I will be able to attend school functions for my sons that I had been too sick to attend in recent years."
Taking Brownlee's hand in hers, Graves said that "this man, who didn't know me a week ago, has blessed my life so richly. I'm just glad that in this same way, his wife has been blessed, too."
By the numbers
16,000
Number of transplants performed last year.
9,400
Number of transplants from cadavers.
6,600
Number of transplants from living donors.
200
Number of transplants done at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
60,000
Number of people on the waiting list for cadaver kidneys
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