What's Up Doc?

When my boyfriend Jeff and I returned from our third winter holiday with Gertrude in Acapulco, I was sick. At first, I thought it was a bad case of touristas even though I never had THAT before. We were always careful about what we ate. Never anything from a street vendor or some seedy restaurant. I immediately saw my internist, Dr. Oyer. He, himself wheeled me from his office to the hospital. He said perhaps I just needed fluids though he didn’t sound convincing.

Northwestern Memorial Hospital is a teaching institution which should explain why a school of interns swam in and out of my room asking the same questions. "How long have you felt this way? What did you eat in Acapulco? What did you drink there? Why did you go there? How often do you test your sugar? Do you smoke? Have you ever smoked? Recreational drugs? What kind of medications do you take? Have you been hospitalized before?"

"Yes."

"Oh really? What for?"

"Check your hospital records. All my hospitalizations were here," I replied.

"Family history. Is there a history of cancer in your family?

"Yes."

"Mental illness?"

"My family is mental as anything."

"High blood pressure?"

"Everyone over 50."

"Emphysema?"

"My maternal grandfather’s brother."

"Leukemia?"

"I don’t think so."

"Are you married?"

"No."

"Do you live alone?"

"No."

More tests. More pokes.

“Pee in the urinal please. We need to track your output. The nurse will come and pick it up later.”

Lucky her.

On the third day of captivity, Dr. Oyer, returned to see me. He didn’t look happy but then, if I were going to see someone who had touristas I wouldn’t be too happy either. He just blurted it out…

“John. The fluids are helping. You were really dehydrated. But you need a new kidney…”

“I need a new WHAT?”

Asshole.

I wanted to flick the TV back on to see what Lauren was going to do when she learned “Contemporary Woman” featured Paul as it’s centerfold. The Young and the Restless offered more upbeat information than my doctor.

Oyer grasped the foot of my bed… waiting for my reaction. After all my eye surgeries and other crap I’d already experienced I don’t know what he expected of me. I just looked at him and said “Okay.”

That black cloud kept following me around.

In my mid-20s and working feverishly to build my brand as a luxury designer, I simply had no time for another medical detour. Let alone something as menacing as a kidney transplant.

How does one find a new kidney?

Obviously, I couldn’t phone my personal shopper at Neiman’s and ask him to set aside a few for me to try on in the Men’s department. But how many points would I earn if I bought one on triple points day?

The next morning the team of doctors and a trail of interns showed up at the same time as my breakfast. While Northwestern was doing kidney transplants, Dr. Oyer did not recommend I have the surgery there. The hospital did not have enough experience. Kidney transplants were still experimental. Instead, he endorsed the University of Minnesota Hospital. It was where kidney transplants were pioneered, the first ever performed there in 1966. Twenty years later they reported a sixty percent success rate.

Was that statistic supposed to be encouraging?

Mom, my brother Ray and I flew to the Twin Cities to confer with the kidney transplant wizards. Jeff stayed behind with his clients who needed their hair cut and colored. He couldn’t cancel their appointments at the last minute.

I’ve never been so scared. Well, except for the previous years when I couldn’t see. I didn’t want to go blind, but I really didn’t want a kidney transplant either. The chances of dying on this new operating table were far greater than before.

It was all so surreal. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Was it a dream? More like a nightmare.

The enormous red brick building’s geometric footprint shot out in several seemingly unorganized directions. Its sterile, hard surfaces were cold and off-putting. Far too much fluorescent lighting throughout the corridors and laboratories made even the doctors and nurses look sick.

Mom was more overwhelmed than I. She thought kidney failure was a disease some unlucky 50-or-60-year-olds might experience. Ray took notes diligently. We soon learned even small children, babies, needed and received transplants. We wondered how surgeons fit a father’s adult-sized kidney into an eighteen-month-old baby.

My evaluation lasted several days. A group of doctors and nurses had to determine if I met the University’s requirements for transplantation. Was I healthy enough to tolerate surgery and the lifelong post-transplant medications? Did I have any medical conditions that might interfere with transplant success? Would I cooperate and follow the suggestions of the transplant team?

Accepting the news about the kidney transplant made me crazy, but then they suggested I consider a pancreas transplant too. They just started to “experiment” with them and would I like to try one?

I didn’t know if I wanted a kidney transplant and they wanted to sign me up for a pancreas. I was already freaking out about the possible failure of the procedure. I didn’t need to add pancreatic panic to my insanity.

Many different blood tests were performed. They took more blood from me than an Anne Rice vampire. Diagnostic tests including a cardiac stress test, chest X-rays, ultrasound, kidney biopsy were done to evaluate my overall health. Plus, bladder and urethra urodynamic testing. Psychological issues regarding the support I would receive from my family and Jeff—I had to tell them about him—was assessed. They questioned the stress in my life.

Who wouldn’t be stressed out while anticipating an organ transplant?

The medical team and social workers who thought they were helping only made me more anxious. The out-of-pocket expenses for a kidney transplant including doctors’ visits, blood tests, prescription drugs, hospital room charges, surgery, other related procedures and, in my case, air fare, hotel, rental car or cab fare and food would be around $143,500.00. That was $30,000.00 more than the average cost of a new home in America.

I needed a valium. A 10 mg one.

My entire family stepped up to the transplant plate. They were evaluated to determine who had the closest tissue and blood type to qualify as a living donor. The tests also ensured that neither the donor nor recipient carry antigens which might adversely influence the transplant. Cindy was a perfect match. Ray a close second. Mom was third. Being in her mid-teens, Regina was ruled out. Bad Daddy was also tested but not a match. I knew that. If I didn’t look so much like him, I would have thought I was adopted.

Mom quickly resolved the issue. Provided the doctors agreed, she insisted on being the donor. Reasoning neither sister Cindy nor Ray had families yet, she argued someday they might be faced with needing to donate a kidney for a child of their own.

“If I am not cheating John of a better kidney from someone else, I want to give him one of mine,” she told the doctors.

At the time, the life expectancy for a transplanted kidney was 12 to 15 years. The doctors proclaimed her a perfectly fit donor.

Waiting was the worst.

After being confirmed a transplant prospect there was nothing to do but wait. Wait and wonder. Would this work? How long would it take? Would I survive? What would life be like after transplantation?

I rode a physical and emotional seesaw. Besides feeling rotten, every hour of every day was filled with fear and apprehension. Yet, I didn’t dare let my clients know how I felt. I worried they’d feel sorry for me and then make up an excuse about not being able to continue with their projects. Rather than dwell on the situation, I worked like a madman.

Careful to shield my deteriorating condition from my growing list of valuable clients, I sandwiched business meetings, installations, interviews with design editors and more between frequent blood tests, transfusions, constant monitoring—and a bout of toxemia. I threw up every morning. Diseased kidneys lose the ability to remove protein waste so I could no longer eat chicken, beef or pork. My salad and blanched veggie diet grew tiresome, but I didn’t have much of an appetite for anything other than surviving.

January 2 my mother and I flew to Minneapolis. Two warriors riding into battle. Needing a kidney structure exam, I was hospitalized a couple days prior to surgery.

My hospital roommate was an irritable old man who just received his kidney transplant. He swore I would wish I were dead by the time the surgeon finished. He wished he were dead.

I wished he were dead.

I worked so hard at preparing myself mentally for transplantation. But at that moment my roommate totally fucked up my emotional coolness and the most powerful fear overcame me. I wondered, once again, why me? What did I do to deserve kidney failure?

Besides eat everything I shouldn’t.

Did I want to have a transplant? No. I wanted to go home and die. Really, I wanted to die. I thought I was ready. That’s how afraid the old fart made me.

January 6, 1987. I don’t remember much. On separate gurneys, Mom and I were transported to the operating room together—holding hands. The drugs we needed to sleep for the next eight to ten hours were already administered through our IV’s. The last thing I recall is Mom saying she loved me. I replied saying, “I love y…” and was out.

The surgeons and nurses could have done anything to me…to us.

Getting a transplant without having dialysis treatment first is called a preemptive transplant. That is what I had. At the last minute it was determined I did not need dialysis. I was so happy. For whatever reason, I was more afraid of dialysis than the transplant. I did not want my blood pumped through tubes in and out of a machine. The thought of it freaked me out.

Many thoughts freaked me out.

The surgeons placed Mom’s kidney in a different location than my original kidneys’ which were not removed. They are only removed if they’re causing severe problems (kidney failure is not one of them) or are enlarged significantly. The artery delivering blood to the kidney and the vein carrying blood away were surgically connected to those already existing in my pelvis. The ureter was connected to the bladder. Mom’s kidney, the greatest gift I will ever receive, is in my lower abdomen.

35 years later it is still with me and working. The miracles of modern medicine!