Despite a strong family history of kidney disease, Larry, 64 a retired United States Air Force Major General, was totally unprepared to learn his kidneys were suddenly failing. He figured at his age it had passed him by. His nephrologist, Dr. Lynda Szeczech, Associate Professor of Medicine at Duke University Medical Center and President of the National Kidney Foundation, had been following Larry closely and suggested he consider a transplant from a living donor. Larry initially preferred being added to the waiting list for a kidney from a deceased donor-;as his brother had done 17 years earlier. "I would have done a cadaver transplant. I didn't want to put anyone at risk," Larry says.
His devoted wife, Anne, a registered nurse and medical/technical writer, had another idea: she wanted to donate her kidney. "She told me that we're in it together and anything that happens to me happens to her," Larry says. Although her kidney wouldn't be a match for her husband's, Anne was undaunted.
After a long and distinguished career in both the military and the private sector now living on a golf course in Sarasota, Florida, Larry was amazed at his wife's tenacity in not only convincing him to participate in a paired exchange living donor transplant, but also in finding the relatively unknown program at Texas Transplant Institute in San Antonio to perform the procedures.
"I give Anne full credit for this. She's a very fine researcher and she investigated 10 transplant centers-;and discovered that the program here at Texas Transplant Institute did more swaps by a wide margin compared to all the other programs you hear about," Larry says.
After completing some of the testing locally, Larry traveled to San Antonio to meet with Texas Transplant Physician Group's abdominal organ surgeon, Dr. Luke Shen. "He said that within just three or four months we could get transplanted. It was dumbfounding," Larry says.
But only about two weeks later, Larry and Anne got the call that there was an incompatible couple in the program's database to match Larry and Anne's kidneys. On April 28, 2010, about six weeks after the initial meeting with Dr. Shen, the transplant surgeries were successfully performed. Larry received a new kidney from Susan whose husband, John, got Anne's kidney.
According to Larry, the program's greatest assets are, first-;the physicians, notably, kidney transplant surgeon, Adam Bingaman, MD, PhD, Director, Live Donor Kidney Transplant Program and the rest of team of kidney transplant specialists, and second-;their unique and growing database of incompatible kidney donor and recipient pairs. Together, they are responsible for transplanting more than 1,400 kidneys from living donors.
Larry feels a kind of professional kinship with Dr. Bingaman. "I've seen a lot of high energy, aggressive, motivated people in my career in the military and in business-;that's what Dr. Bingaman is. He has the vision and the passion to see exactly the path to take with the database and the program," Larry says. And after checking out 10 other programs, he knows the Living Donor Program at Texas Transplant Institute is unrivalled. "What you do here is different. The attitude is different," he says.
And that unique attitude was evident from the very first visit to the clinic. "When I first came here, it was delightful. We got done everything we needed to get done in one visit-;EKG, blood work-;you name it. We saw the nurses, the dietitian, the social worker, the surgeons, the nephrologist-;everyone in just one visit. Everybody was so nice. We even met patients in the waiting room at different stages of the transplant process. Interfacing with them was very useful. We met a man named Daniel who was six months out from his transplant and he was just bubbling over!" Larry says.
Larry was impressed with how well the entire transplant process was coordinated, especially his appointments that always included both Dr. Bingaman and transplant nephrologist, Dr. Matthias Kapturczak. "Dr. Bingaman and Dr. Kapturczak make a great team. When they come to see you, they all come in. It was very, very professional. It's extraordinary, really," Larry says.
Larry is also grateful for transplant coordinator Amanda Weichold, RN, BSN, who organized everything from the initial testing in Florida to his orientation at the clinic in San Antonio to his ongoing care when he returns to Sarasota on June 15.
Both Larry and Dr. Szeczech, his nephrologist at Duke were thrilled to learn Larry would be on a steroid-free maintenance protocol, which is another key benefit for most kidney transplant patients at Texas Transplant Institute.
Fit and still quite tanned despite being away from the golf course for several months, Larry doesn't quite have all his energy back and still has a bit of soreness six weeks after the transplant surgery. Still, he is optimistic and realistic about what will happen when he leaves San Antonio in a week. "Whatever is required, I'll do. I can manage it. Dr. Bingaman will handle my immune-suppression treatment here but my local nephrologist will take care of everything else. Whenever I have to come back, I'll be back," Larry says.
And as disciplined and detached as a former Air Force commander could be, Larry is unabashedly moved by the generosity of all kidney donors, especially his wife who had been so insistent. "I've met a lot of tough people-;they are heroes. I hug every donor I see, especially my wife, who did it in such a loving way-;because I tried to say no to her, I really did. It's the donors who make it all work and a place like this facility that makes the matches," Larry says.
Adam Bingaman, MD, PhD, Francis Wright, Jr., MD, Director of Organ Transplantation, Preston Foster, MD, FACS, Juan Palma-Vargas, MD, and Luke Shen, MD are transplant surgeons with Texas Transplant Physician Group. They serve patients at Texas Transplant Institute's Kidney Transplant Program at Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital in San Antonio, Texas.
Matthias Kapturczak, MD, PhD, transplant nephrologist and Medical Director, Kidney Transplant Program at Texas Transplant Institute, is an independent practitioner with San Antonio Kidney Disease Center Physician Group in San Antonio.