Christmas marks anniversary of new kidney, expanded family
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Abeid "Bey" Johnson stands with his Christmas tree Thursday in his Brentwood home. Mr. Johnson celebrates what he calls his second birthday on Christmas, the day he received a kidney transplant three years ago.
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This Christmas, Abeid "Bey" Johnson marks the third anniversary of his receiving a kidney transplant, a surgery that came by a very unusual and special donation.
Mr. Johnson's new right kidney came from a directed deceased donor. That means the family of the deceased -- in this case an 11-year-old Cleveland girl named Dymond Pollack -- specifically requested Mr. Johnson get one of her kidneys.
"Usually a directed donor is a relative -- or a non-relative -- but usually someone who is alive," said Ron Shapiro, the transplant surgeon who heads kidney, pancreas and islet transplantation in the Thomas Starzl Transplantation Institute of UPMC. "But sometimes you get a deceased donor where the family asks for the kidney to go to someone. The request is able to be honored if it is the appropriate blood type [and other matches] ...
"It's pretty unusual," Dr. Shapiro added. "In my career, I've seen it less than a handful of times."
The connection between Mr. Johnson, 39, and Dymond were his mother, Clarice Johnson, of the Knoxville section of Pittsburgh, and her grandmother, Gerrie Pitts, of the Hill District. The two women are friends who go to the same church, Grace Memorial Presbyterian in the Hill District. Mrs. Pitts was in Cleveland visiting her daughter's family when Dymond was fatally injured. The Johnson family never asked the details of her death.
At the time, Christmas Eve 2008, Mrs. Johnson was at UPMC Shadyside with members of her family holding a vigil for her father, who was dying of congestive heart failure. She was outside his room talking to his doctor, when her sister came running down the hall to say she had an emergency telephone call. Because Mr. Johnson, who was diagnosed with end-stage renal failure in October 2006, was at her house undergoing his regular home dialysis, she thought the worst. Instead it was the organ procurement center in Cleveland, saying it might have a kidney for her son if it proved to be a match.
"Then I got another call from a friend of ours from our church," Mrs. Johnson said. "It was her granddaughter who was passing away in Cleveland. ... There had been a terrible accident with her granddaughter while she was there, and they were having to make a terrible decision about her regarding life support.
"She said, 'I have a kidney and I wonder would you like to have it.' I said, 'Most definitely.' "
Mrs. Pitts also offered to direct a pancreas and kidney to Mrs. Johnson's stepson Nate Milliner, and, though Mrs. Johnson said it proved to be a match, he didn't have all his pre-transplant testing finished and couldn't have it. "That was kind of the sad part of it," Mrs. Johnson said.
That, and the tragedy for Mrs. Pitts' family.
"I know it was God that orchestrated all of this," Mrs. Johnson said. "It's sad for my friend's family and such a blessing for us, but what a wonderful, wonderful Christmas gift it was for us."
The friendship between the two women and their families has deepened.
"We call each other sisters," said Mrs. Johnson, who's writing a book about the experience. "It's altogether different now. We're family."
Mr. Johnson, who had the transplant on Christmas Day, said he didn't know what was going on between his mother and "Mama Gerrie" at the time. All he knew was that he'd been told to finish his dialysis and get to the hospital for final testing as soon as possible.
Mrs. Johnson said they were notified her son was being taken in for surgery about 5 a.m. Christmas Day and was out of recovery at 1 or 2 p.m. "It was a lot faster than we thought."
Three years later, Mr. Johnson said, "I have good days and bad days, but I feel great to be here. That's like a two-fold question."
According to test levels that are fairly stable, his new kidney is functioning well. "There's still concern about my hypertension and getting my blood pressure [which caused his renal failure] under control so it's still a fight every day to maintain it," he said. He takes blood pressure medication and is on a low-sodium diet.
But, unlike in the days when he had four-hour-long dialysis three times a week, he's able to work and go to school. He's a sales associate for Radio Shack and studying biotechnology at Community College of Allegheny County.
There's one part of dialysis he remembers fondly, though: That's how he met his fiance, Mileva Kempa, a dialysis technician. "She's been there for a lot of it. She was one of my dialysis technicians when I started dialysis, so she's been there pretty much the whole way."
First Published December 24, 2011 12:00 am
