Our Family’s Transplant Story
By: Patrick Moody
Last April my brother Dick celebrated his 60th birthday. 60 is always a major milestone. In Dick’s case, it was quite a bit more than that, because when he was about nine years old our mother was told that Dick would never live to see 30.
Dick was diagnosed with a degenerative kidney disease when he was very young – about four years old. Eventually the disease started to take its toll. Shortly after he turned 29 Dick was told his kidney function was down to 5%, and he’d need a transplant. Our brother Fred, the oldest, volunteered to give Dick one of his kidneys, and Dick received Fred’s kidney in November of 1981. As you might expect it was a joyous event.
Dick’s new kidney lasted about seven years before it started to fail, and Dick went back on dialysis. He was set to undergo a second transplant in May of 1989, this time from me, but the transplant was called off, two days before the surgery, when it was discovered that a blood transfusion Dick had received in the last two months had suddenly caused us to be incompatible as donor and recipient. It was devastating news. Dick had to go back on dialysis, and also go on the national transplant waiting list, and hope he would someday be matched with a compatible kidney.
He waited, and waited, and waited hoping he would get a call. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep going. Finally, he got that magical call, and he received a kidney in January of 1994, or as he puts it, “Four years, eight months, three weeks and two days” after the date he had originally been scheduled to undergo his second transplant.
What’s strange about receiving a call like this of course is that you’re aware that your gift is the result of someone else’s tragedy. But to be perfectly honest, this realization, at the time of the transplant, is like a mustard seed. It occupies a small part of your heart, given that most of your heart is filled with joy. But over time that mustard seed grows and grows. And every year we think of that donor more and more. In fact, just recently I sent a letter to Virginia Mason Medical Center, where Dick had his second transplant, asking if they could forward a note of thanks I had written to the donor family. I’d like them to know how incredible their gift of life has continued to give after all these years.
Dick’s second transplant was over 17 years ago. Thanks to that indescribably generous gift, my three daughters, who weren’t even born when all this happened, have had the joy of sitting on their Uncle Dick’s lap, having Uncle Dick read to them, having Uncle Dick go on walks with them, and having Uncle Dick look bemused while my two older daughters, when very little, delighted themselves by tying Uncle Dick to a chair in rolls and rolls of ribbon. But what I think is most important is that my girls been able to know the member of our family who hands-down has the most courage, toughness and generosity of any one of us. (He once literally gave me the sweatshirt of his back). And my sister and brothers and I have had the gift of having Dick in our lives for these last 16 years, and God willing many more. And that’s a gift that’s impossible to put a value on.
Dick with his nieces.