February 14, 2010

In the summer of 2008, Tanya Conrad sent an e-mail to about 50 relatives and close friends, asking if anyone could do her a favor: give up a kidney.

“It is very hard for me to ask you guys this,” she wrote. “But I am in need of help.”

Nearly two years later, Conrad, 36, of Abrams, has joined 1,500 other Wisconsin residents on a transplant waiting list that organ donation advocates wish did not even exist.

About 46,000 people in the state die every year, providing more than enough kidneys, hearts, livers and other organs for everyone who needs a transplant. However, not enough are donors to fulfill the need.

For Conrad, who was diagnosed with kidney disease 10 years ago, that means a life of agonizing uncertainty, with no assurance that a donor will be found before her health deteriorates even further.

“There’s nothing I can do about it,” she said. “That’s what is frustrating about it. I can’t do anything to help myself.”

To promote organ donation, a number of health organizations and others have designated today as National Donor Day — an occasion for people to consider organ, tissue or blood donation.

In Wisconsin, proponents hope to see a significant increase in donations starting in April, when Wisconsin launches a new online organ donation registry.

Rather than waiting to declare themselves organ donors when their driver’s licenses come up for renewal, people will be able to register online. Wisconsin is one of the last states in the country to provide such an online service.

Trey Schwab, outreach coordinator for the University of Wisconsin Hospital Organ Procurement Organization, said he hopes the registry will boost donations statewide from the current 54 percent of all residents aged 16 or older to more than 70 percent — the level in Oklahoma and other leading states.

They estimated 27,000 transplants take place every year from living donors — representing 39 percent of all kidney transplants — with majority in the United States, Brazil, Iran, Mexico and Japan.

“Our study shows that living donor kidney transplant rates have steadily risen in most regions of the world increasing its global significance as a treatment option for kidney failure,” the researchers wrote in Nature’s journal, Kidney International.

Better understanding of these global rates is important as severe kidney disease requiring transplants rises worldwide due to aging populations and unhealthy diets leading to diabetes and other conditions, they said.

Researcher Lucy Horvat and her colleagues at the University of Western Ontario in Canada said understanding who donates and why in different countries can help officials find ways to increase kidney and other organ donations.

“This is the first comprehensive report of its kind and it emphasizes the growing significance of living kidney donation worldwide,” Horvat said in a telephone interview.

A kidney transplant can get a person off dialysis and back to a normal life but the shortage of deceased donors pushes more people to seek an organ donation from a friend or relative, Horvat said.

Her team analyzed data from health registries, transplant networks, published studies and national health ministries in 69 countries.

They estimated the number of living kidney donor transplants grew over the last decade, with more than half of the countries reporting at least a 50 percent increase.

The researchers said Saudi Arabia ranked highest in the world for its living kidney donation rates, with most donors unrelated to the recipients.

Iran came in third and has no waiting list, likely due to a controversial system under which patients can pay for donated kidneys.

The researchers only reported legal living donations and said the overall number is likely higher.

The World Health Organization estimates about 10 percent of all organ transplants worldwide involve unacceptable or illegal transplants.

(Reporting by Michael Kahn; Editing by Maggie Fox and Sophie Hares)

Watch Video http://www.channelnewsasia.com/video/index.php
75-year-old grandma is Singapore’s oldest living organ donor

SINGAPORE: A 75-year-old grandmother has become Singapore’s oldest living organ donor. Madam Chee Leng Yin donated one of her kidneys to save her seriously-ill daughter.

They say nothing is stronger than the bond between a mother and her daughter.

When Madam Chee found out that she could save her daughter’s life by donating a kidney to her, she did not think twice.

She said: “It’s my kidney, it’s my daughter, who can stop me? Once I’ve decided, no one can stop me.”

46-year-old Shirley Lau suffered from end-stage kidney failure and needed a kidney transplant to lead a normal life. Even so, she had reservations about her mother’s sacrifice.

She said: “The feeling is quite complicated because in a way I’m worried, but in a way it is a solution for me. They (the doctors) went through a lot of tests. So based on that fact, we were more assured.”

Months after the surgery at the Singapore General Hospital (SGH) in July, both mother and daughter are doing well.

Doctors say being too old to donate is a common misconception about organ donation. Evidence suggests that older healthy donors are not at a higher risk of surgical complications compared to younger donors.

So more older living donors above the age of 60 could be considered for surgery, if they are found to be mentally and psychologically suitable.

Doctors say that on average, the age difference between an older living donor and the recipient should be 10 to 20 years. But in Madam Chee and Shirley’s case, their age difference of nearly 30 years is an exception.

Dr Terence Kee, a consultant at SGH’s Department of Renal Medicine, said: “There was special consideration, based on the fact that Shirley’s mum’s kidney function is far beyond average expectation and also the fact that Shirley is a much smaller person who would benefit from receiving her mother’s kidney, which is … bigger in size.”

Studies have shown that the survival rate of up to five years is the same for all patients who receive kidneys from living donors, irrespective of whether the donors are young or old. In contrast, kidney patients who are on dialysis have a lower survival rate.

About 1,000 people in Singapore suffer from kidney failure every year. At present, over 500 people are on the waiting list for a kidney.

SGH carried out 10 living kidney transplants last year.

* Sherri Ly Sherri Ly
* By SHERRI LY/myfoxdc

BALTIMORE, Md. – Two women brought together by an unexpected match, underwent kidney transplant surgery Monday morning at The Johns Hopkins Hospital.

The anticipation has been building for months, leading up to the surgery. Etienne Cromer, a 23-year-old woman from Bowie, Maryland was diagnosed with a genetic kidney disorder at 16. She was weakened by the disease and constant dialysis.

Her donor, Kendra Dill, of Severn, Maryland is not related by blood but doctors say was as near perfect match, as close as a parent to a child. Kendra and Etienne’s mother have worked together and shared a friendship for more than 15 years. On Monday morning, Kendra is giving Etienne a second chance.

Kendra arrived at Johns Hopkins around 5:30 a.m. to get prepped for surgery. As the doctor explained the procedure, Kendra clutched a photo of her husband and two children. She is overcome by the gravity of it all.

“I’m nervous. I’m putting my faith in God and the doctors here,” Kendra told FOX 5 just before going into the operating room with the photo at her side.

Down the hall, Etienne, was nervous, too.

“It was almost funny because I almost didn’t want to get out of bed. I was like okay, I just want to go back to sleep and have someone carry me to the car,” Etienne recalled after waking up this morning. She arrived at the hospital about an hour after Kendra.

For the past seven years of her life, Etienne has been in and out of hospitals battling a genetic kidney disorder. She is just 23 years old.

Over the years, the disease weakened her body. She went to the prom on crutches and had two hip replacements, but after having a baby last year, her kidneys began to fail. Doctors said she needed a transplant.

The dialysis, three times a week, three to four hours each time, became like a part-time job.

“You feel wasted. You feel exhausted. It’s almost like you’ve run a marathon. You don’t have any energy,” said Etienne told FOX 5 when we first met her, four days before the surgery.

Now that the day has arrived, Etienne and Kendra’s families gathered in the hospital waiting room as the two women were wheeled into the operating room. It was an emotional day for Carol Cromer. The donor is a friend and co-worker, and the recipient is her daughter.

Etienne says she doesn’t think it will feel any different having Kendra’s kidney. Then her mother joked, “If all of a sudden you want to go to NASCAR racing I know it will be because you have Kendra’s kidney.” Apparently Kendra is quite A NASCAR fan.

Kendra had been prepared to donate before. Five years ago, her brother needed a kidney transplant. She and her sister were matches but he was diagnosed with lung cancer a short time later. Now she has the opportunity to help Etienne.

Kendra went into surgery first. Doctors went in through tiny incisions, working with a microscopic camera to separate the kidney from blood vessels and a vein. Then they placed the kidney into a bag and removed it through an opening only a few inches wide. Dr. Robert Montgomery Chief of Transplantation for Johns Hopkins said “the kidney was gorgeous, a beautiful kidney.”

The kidney was then flushed and put on ice, awaiting transplantation to Etienne. Dr. Montgomery says using a live donor has a huge advantage. Kidneys from live donors he says last twice as long as those from deceased donors, and tend to work immediately with less chance of rejection. It also allows you to bypass the wait on the transplant list for a deceased donor, which averages about five years.

“If you use a live donor kidney transplant, you don’t have to wait in line you can receive the kidney immediately,” the surgeon said.

Kendra downplayed her altruism. “Someone called me a hero and I really don’t consider it heroism,” Kendra said.

While Dr. Montgomery says a donor operation is considered “safe”, the stakes are high. “It’s very unique because a person is undergoing surgery not for themselves but for someone else,” Dr. Montgomery said.

Doctors say the number of organ donors has remained constant, making the need for more live donors critical.

“I’m hoping that in people seeing me do it that if they’re ever given the opportunity approached with the same situation that maybe they might think of my story and Etienne’s story,” Kendra said.

The two women were friends before. Now they’re like family.

“We’ll probably be spending holidays together and it’ll probably be like having a sister,” Etienne imagined.

Doctors say the prognosis is good for both women and they should live a normal and health life. Etienne hasn’t traveled in at least five years because of her health. Now she’s planning her next vacation, a trip to Aruba next year.

Paul Oren – Times Correspondent | Posted: Monday, October 12, 2009 12:00 am |

CHICAGO | Each of the 37,942 participants in Sunday’s Chicago Marathon had a story as to how they arrived at the finish line, but few were more touching than that of Cori Goodfellow.

Goodfellow decided this year that she was going to run the 26.2-mile race only after she was fully recovered from donating a kidney to her friend Kristy Swenson. The Valparaiso resident underwent the procedure Oct. 8, 2008, and began training for the marathon almost immediately after her recovery.

“I had run many half-marathons before but never a whole,” Goodfellow said. “I never could find the inspiration, but with everything that happened, I wanted this feat for myself.”

Even before she donated a kidney to Swenson, Goodfellow’s own journey toward her 26.2-mile destination was uncertain. When she was 8 years old, Goodfellow was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis among a litany of other health problems.

“The doctors told me that eventually I wouldn’t be walking,” Goodfellow said. “I’ve been in remission for years now, but I have to exercise every day to keep my joints from hurting. That’s how I got to running.”

Running the long distance of the marathon was one thing, but doing so 368 days after donating a kidney was quite another. Goodfellow and Swenson are friends through a volleyball league at Calvary Church in Valparaiso, but they weren’t initially close enough that Swenson would expect to receive a kidney transplant from Goodfellow.

“We were kind of hi and bye friends,” Swenson said. “When she first offered to donate her kidney to me, I told her I appreciated it, but no thanks. Then she called me again and said she was serious. Obviously, we have grown very close.”

Swenson knew that if she didn’t find a donor soon, her health would start to deteriorate quickly, so the pair went through the tests and Goodfellow came back a blood match. As both recovered from the procedure, Goodfellow started talking about running in the Chicago Marathon.

“I have always prayed for her to be blessed because of what she’s done for me,” Swenson said. “It makes me feel great knowing that she’s healthy and doing wonderfully. I love the fact that’s she running and doing marathons.”

Initially, Swenson didn’t think she’d be able to make it to Chicago on Sunday to cheer on her friend. Swenson’s mother, Ricky, is set to receive a kidney transplant next week, but, ultimately, Swenson couldn’t keep herself away.

Goodfellow crossed the finish line at four hours, 12 minutes, 39 seconds, and Swenson was right there to greet her with a big hug.

“She called me yesterday and told me that she was going to be able to make it,” Goodfellow said. “It was awesome. I definitely think I’ll do one again.”

Chicago Marathon

More than 45,000 runners registered

37,942 started the race

33,419 finished the 26.2 mile contest

Sammy Wanjiru, of Kenya, won the marathon with the fastest time on American soil, finishing in 2 hours, 5 minutes and 41 seconds.

Posted in Porter on Monday, October 12, 2009

http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/porter/5e5ba48f-1c4f-5a45-8964-fb098168e46d.html
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Kidney transplants: Saving lives

George Harvey’s prayers, at last, have been answered.

For longer than the local inner-city pastor would care to remember, he has been praying for a donor kidney.

His kidneys don’t work properly. That means he must spend hours a week undergoing dialysis, which purifies the blood like a normal kidney would do.

It’s a long and expensive process – and one that has robbed him of his strength.

Fortunately, his son Benjamin recently volunteered to donate one of his kidneys. If he is accepted as a donor by Mayo Clinic, Harvey’s problems may soon be a thing of the past.

If so, Harvey will be one of the lucky ones. In most cases, recipients get organs from dead donors – and that usually means a long wait.

Waiting lists

Nearly 500 people are on the waiting list for kidney transplants at the local Mayo Clinic, according to Thomas Gonwa, a physician and chairman of its Department of Transplantation.

Between 2 percent to 5 percent of those patients die while waiting for a transplant each year.

Nationwide, The Miami Herald reports, 18 people die every day while waiting for organ transplants.

Mayo typically performs about 100 kidney transplants a year. That accounts for one-third of all organ transplants at the facility.

Harvey’s worries are not over. Donors have to be in excellent health, and many are excluded in Mayo’s pre-surgery medical evaluations.

The most common causes for exclusion, Gonwa says, are obesity, hypertension, abnormal kidney function and anatomical abnormalities in the donor.

But if his son does pass the medical screening and the transplant takes place, Harvey will be lucky.

The five-year patient survival rate for recipients of a living donor transplant is 90.1 percent. The rate for those with kidneys from a deceased donor is a little smaller, 81.9 percent.

Ideally, more people should donate a kidney, assuming they have two healthy ones.

Overcoming fears

But there are two obstacles, one legitimate and one not.

Fear one: If someone gives up a kidney, he will die if the remaining one fails.

That’s unlikely. Of all the people who have donated kidneys at Mayo, Gonwa says, none have died as a result of the other one failing.

Fear two: It can be too expensive for the donor.

That is a legitimate concern.

Medical expenses are covered by insurance, but there is no reimbursement for lost wages.

And the clinic tells donors that they may need six weeks to recuperate, particularly if they do a lot of physical work.

It has been reported that live kidney donors typically live longer than those who do not donate.

That’s true, Gonwa confirms, but it’s a little misleading. To donate, a person has to be “basically in perfect health.”

That means he would be expected to live longer than the population as a whole.

Nationwide, unfortunately, fewer live organ transplants are taking place, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.

The Miami Herald says the trend began at the end of last year, and it might be because of the recession; people cannot afford to take several weeks off work.

What’s worse, the number of deceased donors also has dropped slightly across the nation – from 8,085 in 2007 to 7,984 last year.

Greatest gift

There is little risk in becoming a live donor and absolutely nothing to fear if you want to donate a kidney after your death.

When he finally gets his donor kidney, Harvey will be able to return to preaching the gospel, and leading his flock, with his old intensity.

When one donates an organ, it affects more than just the recipient. It impacts everyone around him – not just now, but perhaps many years in the future.

In some cases, that could be hundreds, even thousands, of people.

An organ donation, whether it’s a live person’s kidney or a deceased person’s liver, is more than the gift of life.

It’s the gift of endless possibilities.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Longtime co-workers Ceri McCarron and Betty Egwenike have shared stories about raising children, caring for ailing parents and their travels.

Now, they share an even stronger bond. McCarron recently donated a kidney to Egwenike, who was diagnosed with kidney disease several years ago and was on dialysis three days a week.

What makes their story even more compelling is that although the women worked together for more than 20 years and considered themselves workplace friends, they remained relative strangers outside the job.

“I think the conversations we’ve had in the last couple of weeks have been on a much deeper level,” said McCarron, 44, who lives in East Atlanta with her husband, two children and a menagerie of pets. “I never even had her phone number until I got it at the hospital.”

McCarron and Egwenike, 52, are now both home recuperating. The two, who work in the archives department of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library & Museum, were part of a living donation, which takes place when a living person donates an organ, or part of one. Usually, the donor is an immediate family member, such as a sibling, a child or a parent. But sometimes the donor can be a friend, co-worker or a more distant relative, according to the American Kidney Foundation.

In 2008, 5,967 of the 16,517 kidney transplants came from living donors.

More than 102,000 people in the U.S. are waiting for an organ transplant, according to the Virginia-based United Network for Organ Sharing. About three-fourths of people on the list are waiting for a kidney transplant.

Egwenike said several members of her family have high blood pressure or heart disease, so more than likely, she thought her donor would be a total stranger. Dr. Miguel Tan, who performed the surgery on McCarron at Piedmont Hospital, said the wait times are generally shorter for organs for living donors. There’s also less trauma to the organ, the outcomes are better and evaluations are done on living patients, so their health profiles are well-known.

But one day the two were talking about the transplant and hit on the subject of blood type. It turned out both shared the same blood type — O negative — and a seed was planted.

“She initiated it,” Egwenike said. The disease produces cysts in the kidneys and eventually causes the organs to deteriorate and stop functioning. By the time she was diagnosed, Egwenike said 55 percent of her kidney function was gone. “I was surprised she was actually going to do it. I was skeptical because you can change your mind at any time. I kind of stayed in the background because I didn’t want to be harassing her. I didn’t ask, it was out of her heart.”

It also surprised James A. Yancey Jr., an archivist at the Carter Library, who supervises both women.

“I am awed by this whole process,” he said. “I’m surprised anyone would do this. They’re not kin. They were friendly because they worked together, but they didn’t party together. I don’t think there was an association after work. She (McCarron) put into practice what a lot of people talk about and that’s love.”

As far as McCarron is concerned, it was the right thing to do. “I just knew … I’d seen her struggle with her health for a while and she always did it with such dignity,” she said. “I could tell she was doing what she needed to do to take care of herself, work, raise a daughter and a marriage.”

McCarron spent hours researching the process and went through several tests to determine if she was a match and if her kidneys were healthy. At first her husband, worried about the longtime implications on her health, wasn’t too keen on the idea, but he later came around.

“We both agreed that if something were to happen to Miss Betty, how could we live with ourselves knowing we have helped,” McCarron said.

Egwenike is thankful for the gift. She said she feels much better and has no doubt McCarron took good care of her kidneys.

“Yeah,” she said, laughing. “She drank a lot of water.”

Egwenike said her husband’s friends would like to have a mass in McCarron’s honor. “It was just a beautiful gift,” she said. “She’s an angel.”

“I don’t think it will be the way it was pre-surgery,” McCarron said of her friendship with Egwenike. “Where it leads, I don’t know. I’ll just let it unfold.”

Lori Caldwell donated a kidney to Jerry Glover, of Ventura June 24 at the UCLA Medical Center. Caldwell was out of the hospital in three days. The donation happened about a year after the two met at the funeral of Glover’s father.

Bryan Walton/Staff
What if someone you barely knew offered you one of their organs?

That is just what happened, when Jerry Glover of Ventura received a donated kidney from Lompoc’s Lori Caldwell last month.

“Made my life just a hundred percent better,” Glover said, describing how the donation freed him from endless, draining dialysis treatments.

“It’s not as big a thing as it sounds like. The surgery was nothing,” Caldwell, 47, said, downplaying her actions.

Since the kidney transplant surgery June 24 at the UCLA Medical Center, Caldwell said, she has completely recovered, and enjoys the same kidney function she did with two.

“It’s amazing we have two kidneys when you can function just fine with one,” Caldwell said, describing the surgery — four laproscopic incisions less than an inch long, and one three-inch cut along the lower abdomen where the kidney is removed. She was out of the hospital in three days, and refers to it as the easiest surgery of her life.

The donation happened about a year after the two met and began talking at the funeral of Glover’s father, who was also named Jerry.

“I was real close to his dad,” Caldwell said. “Big Jerry talked about his son so much, I felt like I knew him all these years.”

In a way, she really had. Caldwell said a baby sitter for her daughter actually dated Glover. “So it actually goes back 25 years.”

When his own kidneys stopped working in 2006, the 46-year-old Glover began dialysis treatment.

Though dialysis will remove water and some toxins from the blood, it is not a perfect solution, and leaves patients exhausted after each treatment, which must be done, on average, every two to three days.

Glover said he got on the kidney transplant list, but the wait was estimated to be seven years or longer.

“By then, some patients can become so sick that they’re not good candidates for surgery anymore,” Caldwell said.

She would know, having worked as a bus driver for medical patients to and from dialysis treatment years earlier.

After hearing about Glover’s situation, and realizing they shared a blood type, Caldwell told him she would be interested in looking into donating a kidney for him.

Glover said he was tentative at first about the offer.

“You don’t want to push anybody. If they have any doubt in their mind, you don’t want them to do it.”

“But I called her later, got to know her, and she was serious,” Glover said.

For a year, Caldwell and Glover took a series of tests to confirm that her kidney would have a good chance of being compatible with Glover, that she could live without complication with only one kidney, and that both individuals could handle the strain of the surgery.

Months went by, but the doctors finally announced that everything looked fine to proceed.

That day, Caldwell said, she did feel some nerves about the donation, but she felt calmer as the surgery date approached.

With the help and support of her mother, aunt and best friend, Caldwell said, they made the drive down to UCLA, and had the surgery.

Glover is currently taking heavy doses of anti-rejection drugs, and has yet to return to work, but says he already feels immensely better, and has kept in touch with Caldwell, the two of them calling every other day.

“Obviously now we have a pretty good friendship,” Glover said. “I’m sure we’ll be friends forever now.”

Caldwell is not the only Lompoc woman to generously give an organ to a friend in need. In February, a similar story occurred between two Lompoc residents, Rachel Viramontes and John Ruckman.

Viramontes, 29, and her husband met Ruckman and his wife Carri through co-workers, and two couples became close friends.

“We just started hanging out — game night, watching ‘24’ once a week, regular potlucks,” Viramontes said.

Then the news came that John Ruckman’s kidneys were failing due to a hereditary disease.

To save money for the medical costs, the Ruckmans moved into the basement unit of the Viramontes’ house. Within a few months, the 30-year-old Ruckman had to go on dialysis.

Meanwhile, initial tests showed that Viramontes was an excellent donation candidate.

“I read all the information, I talked to my doctor, and I talked to my family,” Viramontes said.

Viramontes, who now lives in Concord, Calif., also said it was easier than she thought to give a kidney.

“You just have to be willing to help,” Viramontes said. “It was nice to help out a friend.”

July 21, 2009

Barbara Hubbard of Collinsville gave up a kidney, but she gained something far more precious in return: her sister’s life.

Doctors in Massachusetts recently removed one kidney from Hubbard, 62, and transplanted it into her sister Mary Link, 59, whose own kidneys had failed. Hubbard said the experience was “thrilling.”

“It was a pleasure, a privilege to do this for Mary,” Hubbard said. “It’s so very exciting to know she’s healthy and her body’s working.”

Decades ago, Link began taking a long-term prescription medication that had a side effect of kidney damage. It was then Hubbard offered to donate a kidney if Link needed it.

“I promised my sister about 25 years ago, if she ever needed me, I’d be there for her,” Hubbard said.

When Link’s kidneys eventually failed and it came time to make good on her promise last summer, Hubbard said, “I never hesitated a moment. How often do you get a chance to save your sister’s life?”

Link’s three sisters and their cousin volunteered to be tested to see if they were suitable donors, but because the process is so extensive, doctors started with Hubbard and only tested one person at a time.

Hubbard went through hundreds of thousands of dollars of tests, most of them at Memorial Hospital in Martinsville, because doctors “wanted to make sure I wasn’t risking my life to save Mary’s,” she said. She also met with a donor advocate to make sure she was making the decision of her own free will.

When someone donates a kidney, the recipient’s insurance pays for everything, said Barbara’s husband, Frank Hubbard.

Before she could go through with the surgery, doctors wanted Barbara Hubbard to lose weight. With her sister’s life at stake, she stayed motivated and shed 50 pounds in several months.

“I had the weight of the world on me” to succeed, Hubbard said. “I ate like I was supposed to, and I exercised on the treadmill.”

Meanwhile, Link had started on dialysis in February but “probably should’ve started it earlier,” Hubbard said.

Dialysis can be done for a maximum of seven years. If Link had remained on the transplant list for people in need of kidneys, she would have been low-priority for an organ because of her age, Frank Hubbard said.

When the time for the transplant came in June, Barbara Hubbard traveled to the University of Massachusetts Memorial Hospital, near where her sisters and mother live.

Hubbard said she never worried going into the surgery.

“My mother was panicked. She’s 94 years old and has two daughters going under the knife,” Hubbard said. Fortunately, she added, “Nothing happened. It was a perfect surgery.”

Hubbard was in the operating room for four hours, and her sister’s surgery lasted two and a half hours. Doctors did not remove Link’s original kidneys because it is safer to leave them in, so she now has three kidneys.

The donated kidney began working immediately — so well, in fact, that doctors released Link from the hospital two days earlier than anticipated. The two stayed with family in Massachusetts as they recuperated and were cared for by their older sisters, Lynnie DeHart and Susan Henke, both of Massachusetts.

Spending that time together as a family “was a gift in itself,” Hubbard said.

Hubbard also came home from the surgery with a bag of gifts the medical team presented to her on her third day in the hospital. One was a green rubber bracelet that is given only to organ donors. Green symbolizes new life, she said, and it is printed with the words “endurance,” “hope,” “courage” and “bravery.”

“I have been wearing it ever since it was put on my wrist,” Hubbard said. She also received a kidney-shaped pillow with notes written on it by the surgeon, transplant support team and Hubbard’s family, as well as a certificate saying she had saved Link’s life.

“Every one of the gifts really touched my heart,” Hubbard said. “When I asked if Mary was going to get gifts, too, I was told ‘No’ because she received the most precious gift: my kidney.”

Since the surgery, Hubbard said of her sister, “she looks alive again.” Before, “she was just dragging. She had no energy.”

Transplant surgery is more difficult for the recipient than the donor, Hubbard said. Link will be out of work two to three months from her job helping mentally challenged clients find employment. In contrast, Hubbard, a former classroom teacher who now runs a business as a reading tutor, resumed working two weeks after the surgery.

Link will take antirejection drugs for the rest of her life — which, thanks to the donated kidney, is expected be much longer.

The life expectancy for transplant patients receiving kidneys from living donors is 25 to 35 years, Hubbard said, as opposed to 10 to 15 years if the kidney came from a deceased donor.

“I think it is a shame to bury bodies filled with organs that are potentially lifesaving,” Hubbard said.

For living donors, the kidney is one organ that can be given without too much impact on the donor’s quality of life. And if something happens to Hubbard’s remaining kidney, as a donor she would “jump to the top of the transplant list,” she said.

Hubbard said she does not even notice her kidney is gone.

“I can’t even feel any difference,” she said. The only impact to her lifestyle as a result of the surgery, she said, is “I just have to watch my salt intake.”

Too much salt can cause high blood pressure and damage her remaining kidney. Hubbard also cannot take ibuprofen, “and I can’t play football,” she laughed.

But despite these minor caveats, the experience of donating a kidney “enriched my life,” Hubbard said.

“My sister Sue told me, ‘Not only did you give our sister the gift of life, you gave the whole family the gift of life, because what would we have done without Mary?’” she said.

“It wasn’t like I had to really think about it. I almost was embarrassed when people were complimenting me, because it wasn’t a decision. It’s just what siblings do.”

DOVER — Down in New Jersey, a retired police officer was undergoing dialysis Tuesday, counting the days until an “angel” from New Hampshire arrived in New York City to give him one of her kidneys.

“I’m 100 percent on board with this,” said Jennifer Gregoire, who recently sold her home in Rochester and is moving to Newton.

She’ll leave today and go into surgery at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia on Friday, ending a mission she began earlier this year to give the gift of life.

But really, her quest is rooted in the kidney transplant her husband, Ken, a Dover native, received six years ago from his sister Michelle.

“I wouldn’t have him now if it weren’t for her donating her kidney,” Gregoire, 37, said. “I’m trying to pay it forward.”

She and Jim Collis, a 49-year-old married father of two teenage children, have a website — floodsisters.org — to thank for their connection.

Run by the Flood Sisters Kidney Foundation of America, the site allows people in need of a transplant to connect with people willing to donate. Three sisters started the foundation in 2007 to spread awareness of the alternative ways people can take to finding an “altruistic,” or unrelated, living donor without going through the national waiting list.

The sisters encountered challenges in their pursuit until they turned to an online classifieds source to find a donor. Results were mixed, and some people wanted money for donating their kidney, which is illegal. Soon their search gained media attention and calls from people across the United States, and even the world, started coming in. Their 68-year-old father was saved.

“We’re very grateful for saving our dad and putting it forward to save others,” said Jennifer Flood.

So far, the site has 63 members —34 patients and 30 donors — but Collis will be the first one to receive a transplant.

As of Tuesday, there were 102,386 people on the donor waiting list, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, a nonprofit organization that administers the nation’s organ procurement and transplantation network. Nearly 9,350 transplants took place between January and April.

Collis used to be on the list, which yielded potential matches. But with the first, his doctor didn’t feel comfortable using the kidney because it came from a young child, he said. Another match was identified for Collis, but the donor was already deceased and kidneys from cadavers do not have the same success rate as those from the living. Besides, Collis already knew that Gregoire was undergoing testing required before surgery so he passed on the cadaver donation in favor of Gregoire.

“Ninety-eight percent of transplanted kidneys begin working immediately versus with a cadaver it’s only around 50 percent,” said Collis, who lives in Clifton, N.J. and was forced to retire when he started dialysis two years ago for an autoimmune disease confined in his kidneys, which filter blood.

Gregoire, who works for an affiliate of Exeter Hospital training customer service staff, had to wait a few years after her husband Ken’s transplant before she could volunteer for the donation. He’s “doing great now,” but the transplant was followed by a stroke and medical setbacks that prevented her from being able to take the time to prepare and heal from surgery.

Fifty-five years after the first successful living donor transplant, Gregoire said she expects to be out of the hospital by Sunday and back at work by July 27.

The transplant will be over, but the friendship will remain.

Collis was the first person the Gregoires contacted after coming up with a list of 15 to 20 people who were in need of a transplant and turned to the Flood Sisters foundation for help. Jennifer said she felt “uncomfortable” choosing someone. In Collis, she saw a young father with teenage children who made a career out of helping people.

“I think the biggest thing was I wanted him to have the opportunity see his kids graduate from school and walk his daughter down the aisle,” she said.

Gregoire called Collis one night and introduced herself. He recalled being a bit skeptical at first after coming across “deceptive” people claiming to want to help through online classifieds. They talked more, and soon he knew she was “the real thing,” he said.

The transplant was set in motion. He contacted his transplant coordinator at the hospital. She reached out to the hospital. The hospital sent her a dozen vials for her blood samples. She complied and the hospital confirmed their blood type compatibility. By now it was early June, and she was off to New York for tests.

It would be the first time they met.

Collis’ wife, Diane, cooked her famous lasagna and everyone became close friends. The wives bonded over the changes their husbands’ experiences brought their family, Gregoire said. Clearing snow, shoveling the roof and mowing the lawn are no longer jobs just left to the guys, she said.

“We’ve really created a nice friendship,” she added.

“When someone does something like this,” Jim Collis said during dialysis Tuesday, “there will be a bond forever. … I would say Jennifer is without a doubt an angel and by her making her decision to donate a kidney it’s giving somebody else their life back.”

Dialysis has taken its toll on him. He said he felt “horrible” Tuesday but hopeful about the transplant and grateful to Gregoire’s family for their support.

“I just think it’s a great gift, and I don’t think a lot of people realize you can live with one kidney” and rely on it to do the work of both, Gregoire said.

“I think more awareness is needed,” Collis said. Though retired, he said he’s looking forward to volunteering, maybe with the Red Cross or another public service outlet, as soon as he can.