Bill Hudson
Inside Chris Strouth’s room at the University of Minnesota Medical Center, a “Hello Kidney” cake lightens the mood. For the past year, Strouth has been living with a dire medical situation: failing kidneys.
On Tuesday, surgeons at the university transplanted a living donor kidney in Strouth. It’s quite a contrast when you consider the life he’s been living.
“I can’t even comprehend it,” Strouth explained from his hospital bed.
Since last April, the 41-year old music and video producer had been making three trips each week to a dialysis center in Minneapolis. For three hours each visit, intravenous tubes dangled from his arms as the filtering machine pumped his blood to remove impurities that his kidneys couldn’t.
Strouth, smiling through the pain from his incision, said, “This is the first time I haven’t been … it’s a week without dialysis.”
Strouth received his transplanted kidney from St. Catherine University employee Scott Pakudaitis, who had just months earlier responded to a message Strouth placed on Twitter and Facebook.
Strouth had just found out he would need a transplant and was making an appeal for his vast network of friends to get the word out. Little did either of the two men know at the time that Pakudaitis would provide the perfect match.
Pakudaitis said he has been looking forward to this week for quite awhile, when his gift of a kidney could help spare the life of someone in need.
When asked if he had any doubt, reservation or anxiety about doctors removing one of his healthy organs, he said, “Actually I was very excited about it. In fact, the night before (the surgery) I went out dancing.”
Pakudaitis said it took about five hours for the medical team to harvest his kidney and immediately transplant it into Strouth Tuesday. Though he was given the option to back out right up to the moment of the kidney’s removal, he said it never even entered his mind.
“Obviously I’m experiencing a little bit of physical pain now, but that’s nothing compared to what he was going through with dialysis and his disease,” Pakudaitis explained.
The actual transplant was performed by Dr. Ty Dunn, who explained that living donor kidneys provide the best long term outcomes and immediate kidney function for the patient. That often translates to decreased complications and the benefit of not having to wait for up to five years on “the list.”
When asked about his way of thanking Scott for his unselfish generosity, Strouth simply responded, “There is no thank you gift in the world that’s really going to cut it. No flowers, no watch — that’s just not it. Instead, I promise to him to be the best that I can be.”
He added there is also a much larger mission of sharing the story that goes beyond the unique nature of how these two cyber friends came together.
“The fact we can tell the story to get people to think about becoming a live donor, cause there’s a lot of people who could use the help,” he said.
Pakudaitis said he hopes his gift of life will inspire others to do the same.
“I guess it makes me feel good I helped someone in a very significant way,” he said.
http://wcco.com/health/kidney.transplant.facebook.2.1350676.html