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addition to those challenges, Dr. Michelle Kittleson and her 10 years she’s being doing her job she had never seen a closer
amazing team at Cedars-Sinai had to provide three months of match. Of course, the best benefit of such a close match is that
special training for their entire staff just for me to be able to do the risk of organ rejection is low.
the surgery.
I received my second transplant on October 31, 2017 and I’m
On May 9, 2016, I received the gift of my new heart: something finally able to pee again! It’s the small things in the life that
I saw as extra borrowed time. This was my “encore,” and it was make a huge difference, and I’ll never take peeing for granted
just beginning. Almost immediately after the transplant, my ever again, you can count on that! So, I’m the first double trans-
kidneys took a bruising because of the immunosuppressive plant recipient with hemophilia in the United States! A great
medications I was on, and they started to fail. My creatinine friend and mentor of mine once told me that you never want
sky-rocketed to almost 13, when a normal range is .6 - 1.5. I was to be the first or the last person to do anything. In this case I
on dialysis for a few days, which got my numbers under control, didn’t have a choice, but it’s still pretty cool to be a “first.”
and that kept my kidneys happy… for a while. When I returned
home they failed again, so now a kidney transplant was next Finally, it may seem obvious, but I am blessed for my selfless
on the list. I told myself I was just going to keep doing trans- donors. I keep them in my daily thoughts and prayers; I hope
plants, and become the bionic man: an idea I found pretty cool, you will, too. I wouldn’t be here to enjoy my next chapter if it
actually. I started kidney dialysis in March 2017: three days a wasn’t for them.
week, eight hours at a stretch. Happily, a living donor match
was found and my transplant coordinator told me that in the Thank you from the bottom of my (new) heart! n n
6 Dateline Federation | Winter 2017
