Kidney Transplant

Jim Duquette and his daughter Lindsey are recovering after the former Orioles executive donated his kidney to the 10-year-old earlier this month. Lindsey suffers from a rare kidney disorder with no known cure, focal segmental glomerulosclerosis , that destroyed her kidneys, creating the need for the transplant. The transplant won't necessarily cure Lindsey and there is a 50 percent chance the disease will attack the new organs. But the family is hoping it could put her in a form of remission.

The first Marylander to succumb to rabies since 1976 developed the virus through a kidney transplant that took place more than a year before the Army veteran died of the disease in February, national health and defense officials said Friday. Tests performed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since the Marylander's death showed that the Florida organ donor, a 20-year-old Air Force service member, died of rabies, and the same type of rabies was found in both the donor and the kidney recipient.

The first Marylander to succumb to rabies since 1976 developed the virus through a kidney transplant that took place more than a year before the Army veteran died of the disease in February, national health and defense officials said Friday. Tests performed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since the Marylander's death showed that the Florida organ donor, a 20-year-old Air Force service member, died of rabies, and the same type of rabies was found in both the donor and the kidney recipient.

Margery K. "Margie" Pozefsky, an artist and kidney transplant survivor who supported a kidney swapping transplant program at Johns Hopkins Hospital, died Friday of lung cancer at her Rockland home. She was 71. "Margie was just a wonderful woman who had been one of our patients years ago and then endowed a professorship of kidney transplant surgery at Hopkins," said Dr. Julie A. Freischlag, chair of the Department of Surgery and surgeon in chief at Hopkins. "It was a huge gift, and she also helped enhance our kidney swap program and computerized database," Dr. Freischlag said.

Q: For nine months I have been on a waiting list for a kidney transplant while being treated for renal failure with hemodialysis. Why does it take so long?A: Delays in the transplantation of kidneys, as well as hearts and livers, are due to a shortage of organs -- a shortage called a public health crisis. Nationwide, more than 18,000 people were waiting for a kidney in February 1991; about 150 are presently on the waiting list in Maryland. The time on the waiting list varies across the country; the average wait is more than a year but may be as long as five years.

It never crossed LaKebra Clark's mind that she'd donate one of her kidneys, let alone that it would go to her own father. The eldest of three children, Clark had always been close to her dad, Gregory Bryant, 47, a salesman in an auto dealership. A year ago, he became ill with hypertension, and doctors diagnosed kidney disease. Suddenly, it was time to help save his life. On Dec. 30, which happened to be Clark's 27th birthday, her father called and said, " 'I need you to come through for me,' " she recalled.

Maryland Health Secretary Nelson J. Sabatini said yesterday that his department will resume paying for a new immunosuppressant drug used by kidney transplant patients in a state-funded program. But Sabatini said restoration of coverage for the drug known as Rapamune will not affect a decision to halt reimbursement for about 80 other pharmaceuticals that were dropped from the Maryland Kidney Disease Program in mid-April. His action on Rapamune followed a barrage of protests by patients, advocates and kidney specialists who said the ban on the drug was putting patients at risk because there is no known substitute.

A week before Christmas in 2003, Norman Biondi gave his daughter Emily the greatest gift possible: a new lease on life. He donated a kidney to his ailing daughter, who not only has regained her health but these days is making a name for herself as a competitive athlete. This week, Emily Biondi, 24, is scheduled to travel to Bangkok, Thailand, with her father to participate with Team USA in track and field events at the World Transplant Games. Last year, the Ellicott City native won four medals at the National Transplant Games in Louisville, Ky., but says the world games are "a much bigger deal."

Margery K. "Margie" Pozefsky, an artist and kidney transplant survivor who supported a kidney swapping transplant program at Johns Hopkins Hospital, died Friday of lung cancer at her Rockland home. She was 71. "Margie was just a wonderful woman who had been one of our patients years ago and then endowed a professorship of kidney transplant surgery at Hopkins," said Dr. Julie A. Freischlag, chair of the Department of Surgery and surgeon in chief at Hopkins. "It was a huge gift, and she also helped enhance our kidney swap program and computerized database," Dr. Freischlag said.

It sounds like one of those logical brainteasers that almost no one can solve: You have three pairs whose partners don't match each other but might match members of other pairs. By shuffling, can you come up with three perfect matches? The answer was a happy "yes" at Johns Hopkins Hospital, where 15 doctors operated on six patients over 11 hours Monday to transplant three healthy kidneys into three desperate recipients. The "triple switch" was almost certainly the first such maneuver in history, Johns Hopkins officials said.

Joan Corbin's day is governed by the humming box in the alcove off her living room. For nearly an hour in the afternoon and nine hours at night, the Smith Island resident must tether herself to a suitcase-sized dialysis machine to get rid of the waste building up in her body. A healthy person's kidneys would perform that vital chore. But Corbin's gave out long ago, after being damaged by infections in her youth. She got a new kidney from her older brother 13 years ago at the University of Maryland Medical Center, which restored her health for a time.

When you grow up taking care of other people, it's understandable that you might put taking care of yourself last on the list. Until, of course, you absolutely have to put yourself on the list. The kidney transplant list. A colleague, Carla Hubbard, spoke frankly with me about this over lunch recently. I asked if she would let me interview her when I found myself standing at the strange intersection of the people I work for and the people I work with at the Johns Hopkins University Press.

Jim Duquette and his daughter Lindsey are recovering after the former Orioles executive donated his kidney to the 10-year-old earlier this month. Lindsey suffers from a rare kidney disorder with no known cure, focal segmental glomerulosclerosis , that destroyed her kidneys, creating the need for the transplant. The transplant won't necessarily cure Lindsey and there is a 50 percent chance the disease will attack the new organs. But the family is hoping it could put her in a form of remission.

The problems of a 10-year-old sound something like this. "Can I pleeeaaase have an email account?" pleads Lindsey Duquette, jumping up and down in front of her mom, Pam Duquette, in the family kitchen in Sparks. "All my friends have email. " It's enough to make any parents roll their eyes. But for the Duquette family - dad is former Orioles vice president turned baseball analyst Jim Duquette - childhood dramas like this secretly make them smile. A year ago the now rambunctious Lindsey was bedridden and lethargic.

Tom Martinez, longtime personal coach to New England Patriot Quarterback Tom Brady was slated to come to Johns Hopkins Hospital for a life-saving kidney transplant in coming months. But the Associated Press reported today that he died. The story says he had a heart attack after a dialysis treatment. But the publicity drummed up by Brady may mean others get the kidney they need. Hopkins said many people, strangers mostly, came in to be tested after hearing about the 67-year-old's plight.

When the Super Bowl ends Sunday, win or lose, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is likely to exchange texts with one man. When Brady was 12, he met Tom Martinez at a football camp at the College of San Mateo in California and has sought the coach's assessment of his performance after every game in his career. But in December, the conversation turned from the NFL star's skills to Martinez's health, after Brady learned that Martinez was struggling on dialysis and awaiting a kidney transplant at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

The opera singer who eventually became Dr. Robert A. Montgomery's wife would never have taken him for a kidney transplant surgeon the first time she saw him, not with the long hair and that outrageous mustache. Maybe a biker, she figured, and maybe she was onto something there. When he heads for work at Johns Hopkins Hospital from his loft in Fells Point or the manse he shares in Bethesda with Denyce Graves, the internationally known mezzo soprano, Montgomery roars off in his 500-horsepower Shelby Cobra, painted white with a blue stripe down the center.

When you grow up taking care of other people, it's understandable that you might put taking care of yourself last on the list. Until, of course, you absolutely have to put yourself on the list. The kidney transplant list. A colleague, Carla Hubbard, spoke frankly with me about this over lunch recently. I asked if she would let me interview her when I found myself standing at the strange intersection of the people I work for and the people I work with at the Johns Hopkins University Press.

Too much was happening at once. It seemed that years worth of life-altering news — some good, some tragic — was being compressed into a single, unforgettable day. Remarkably, the thread that tied the day's events together was football. It was this past July, and Mark Sobel, a 51-year-old New Jersey orthopedic surgeon and former walk-on Maryland football player, was suffering through the unimaginably sad death of his 17-year-old son. Nearing the end of his life, Mark Sobel Jr. lay in Children's Hospital of Philadelphia with myocarditis, an infection of the heart.

Eagerness to spread the word about kidney disease is enough to drive local residents up a wall — or down a tower. On June 19, some will take to the side of the 24-story Legg Mason Tower in Harbor East, then rappel down one of Baltimore's most prominent skyscrapers as part of a fundraising approach by the National Kidney Foundation of Maryland. Rappel for Kidney Health is designed to raise awareness about a disease that affects one in nine Marylanders. Each participant must raise at least $1,000 in advance.