Kidney
gift seals
friendship

by GERCINE CARTER

FRIENDS DONNA CLARKE and Celeste Price share everything.

They believe, as Persian poet Kahlil Gibran wrote in The Prophet, "your friend is your needs answered . . . if he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also".

The bond between these two proved to be the life-saver Donna's husband longed for, and remains the glue that holds two grateful families together.

Donna and Celeste firstmet at the community pool in their Louisville, Kentucky neighbourhood.

A friendship developed which eventually brought the two families together, growing even stronger when Celeste went to work alongside Donna in the administration department of Fern Creek Traditional High School.

Among the many things Donna shared with Celeste was the fact that her husband Tony suffered from polycystic kidney disease, and that there was nothing doctors could do until his health started to decline. Then, they said, they would have to put him on a transplant list and on a donor list.

Visibly upset

One year after first learning about Tony's illness, Celeste noticed a visibly upset Donna arriving at work one morning. She immediately pulled her friend aside only to learn that Tony's creatanine (a compound which is excreted in the urine) had gone really high and doctors were considering placing him on dialysis and on the donor list.

As Celeste recalled, "We talked about it a little bit and then she came back and said she was tested and she was not the same blood type."

"I said, 'What is his blood type, and she said O Positive. I said, 'Well, that's what I am."

Without giving it another thought, Celeste responded, "I'll do it."

In that split second Celeste had made the critical decision to give one of her kidneys to her best friend's husband, thinking only, as Gibran wrote, "When your friend speaks his mind, you fear not the 'nay' in your own mind, nor do you withhold the 'ay'."

Donna looked at Celeste in disbelief and could only mutter "Oohh"?

But as Celeste got home that night, the sobering thought surfaced, "I should really ask my husband for his opinion." David Price did not hesitate to give his approval.

Medical checks

Meanwhile, medical checks were done with Tony's several siblings, who had already lost two brothers to polycystic kidney disease.

Unfortunately, heart complications ruled out all his family members. Chad, the teenage son of Donna and Tony, a football player his college team could not be considered, the fear of him also having the disease being real.

Celeste insisted she would donate her kidney.

"I kept saying I will do it. Just have me tested. I really think I am going to be a match."

Celeste underwent extensive testing; she was given psychiatric and psychological evaluation; she had all kinds of renal testing and X-rays.

Meanwhile, Tony's condition was rapidly deteriorating. He was getting sicker and closer to the dialysis stage.

But cautious doctors were taking small steps to the treatment process while Donna and Celeste were determined to speed it up.

Almost in unison, the two impatient women told the doctors, "You tell us what we need to do. We are ready."

Celeste kept insisting, "I will go every day for tests if that is what I need to do, if we can do it (the transplant) by the end of the year." By that time Tony's creatinine had risento 8.5, way above the normal range of 0.1 to 1.2.

On December 15, 2004, Celeste was wheeled into the operating theatre of tyhe Jewish Hospital and Transplant Centre in Louisville to give her left kidney and save the life of her best friend's husband, while a desperate Tony lay waiting to be given back his life. Outside, two anxious families waited.

Recalling the laparoscopic surgery, Celeste related: "I just had an incision below my belly button, and they said my kidney popped out of my whole belly button like an Eggo, so they brought it right out and put it in Tony. They said the minute they got it hooked up, it started working. Within a matter of hours, his creatinine had gone from 8.5 to 2.5. It was amazing."

Playing cards

Two days after the surgery, donor and recipient, who had been placed in side by side rooms to recover, were sitting up with their spouses playing a game of cards.

To this day, Tony tells Celeste, "I don't understand why you did it."

But just as she had told her family when they first questioned her decision, Celeste maintains, "this was divine intervention. I always believe that God puts you in places that you are supposed to be. I was 52 years old, andI had lost a brother and sister within one year".

Celeste and Donna return to Louisville today, after spending one week in Barbados at the invitation of the Kiwanis Club. While here, they shared their story with many as Celeste sought to encourage kidney donorship.

She constantly remembers Tony's words, "You are a life-saver".

Tony, who owns a barber shop in Kentucky, was unable to make the Barbados trip.

* gercinecarter@nationnews.com