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“font-family: Verdana;”>It’s been about three months since a St. Louis couple made medical history at Barnes-Jewish Hospital when they swapped a kidney to receive a kidney from a donor and recipient pair in New Hampshire.
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The two
lives saved were made possible through a new nationwide live kidney
swap database, the United Network for Organ Sharing.
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Rebecca
Burkes donated a kidney that was swapped for another kidney that
was transplanted to her fiancé, Kenneth Crowder
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“Let’s start
a trend,” she said – “kidney swaps in the African-American
community, seeing that it affects us so much.”
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Burkes said
it was well worth it to save the life of her fiancé and that of a
woman in New Hampshire who now has her kidney.
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Uncontrolled
high blood pressure messed up Kenneth Crowder’s kidneys.
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Despite
taking several medications for high blood pressure prescribed by a
former health provider, her kidneys failed. Crowder could urinate,
but his kidneys were not doing their essential function of
filtering toxins and fluid wastes from his blood. Crowder was
experiencing swelling, puffiness in his body, aches and
headaches.
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“I did not
know that my kidneys were being affected,” Crowder said.
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“I had been
sick and ended up going in the hospital, and the doctor said I had
kidney problems – ‘next year your kidneys will probably be gone.’
And just a few months had gone by and my kidneys were
gone.”
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For more
than a year, Crowder had been on dialysis three times a week
because of high blood pressure. A machine called a dialyzer is
attached to the body through a catheter or by needles. This carries
blood from the body into the dialyzer to filter excess fluids,
minerals and wastes from the blood, and then return cleans blood
back into the bloodstream. The process is called
hemodialysis.
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Without a
transplant, patients with permanent kidney failure remain on
dialysis for the remainder of their lives.
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Ironically,
Burkes, his fiancée, is a dialysis nurse. She wanted to give
Crowder one of her healthy kidneys, but they were not a
match.
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“A year ago
last November we started the process for him in trying to get it,
and they told us it would be anywhere from five to 10 years to get
a cadaver kidney,” Burkes said.
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“We tried to
figure out how to get him a kidney faster.”
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They started
the transplant evaluation process at the transplant center at
Barnes. That took about a year. They found out about the new pilot
databank in November, and they put their names in the
databank.
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“They would
find you a kidney somewhere in the 50 states, and you would have to
give your kidney and then they would give Ken a kidney,” Burkes
explained the process.
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In New
England, there were two Kathys (one with a C, one with a K) in a
similar situation.
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Kathy
Niedzwiecki thought she would be on the transplant list for at
least a couple of years. Her sister-in-law, Cathy Richard, wanted
to give Kathy one of her own kidneys, but was
incompatible.
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But she was
a great match for Ken Crowder in St. Louis.
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This is
where the experts at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Dartmouth-Hitchcock
Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. stepped in, thanks to the
nationwide donor swap pilot.
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On Dec. 6,
2010, transplant coordinators from both hospitals flew with the
donated organs to Pittsburgh, where they made the swap. They then
returned to their respective cities, where the successful
transplants were performed.
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“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>‘We will follow you for life’
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Dr. Jason
Wellen, surgical director of the Barnes-Jewish Hospital kidney and
kidney/pancreas transplant program, said care for Crowder continues
long past the surgery.
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“Once you
get a transplant at Barnes, we will follow you for life,” Wellen
said.
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“So we will
be on top of his blood pressure medicine with him, and we will
constantly make adjustments to his blood pressure medicines from
now until forever so that he will basically not lose his kidney due
to high blood pressure.”
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Although
Crowder said he is feeling better than he has felt in years and can
now enjoy a “regular diet,” regular means eating in a
health-conscious manner to avoid hypertension and protect the
health of that kidney.
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“And yes –
diet is a big part of it,” Wellen said. “He needs to watch what he
eats, just like any regular patient.”
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Moderation
is essential for the kidney transplant patient.
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“Just like
when you donate a kidney, we always recommend people do the same
things in moderation,” Wellen said.
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“So you can
have alcohol – just do it in moderation. They can have Tylenol and
Advil – just do it in moderation.”
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Wellen said
there are plenty of people who get along just fine with one
kidney.
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“Donors live
the exact same lifestyle that they lived before they donated, and
it’s been shown that they have no higher risk for renal failure and
they have no higher risk of long-term death,” he said.
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“My one
recommendation is not to play contact sports. Other than that, your
lifestyle should not change. ”
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“font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>For more information, go to
“color: black;”>www.barnesjewish.org/kidney-transplant www.unos.org.
