Co-worker donates kidney

Netty Poppe didn’t mean to break down in the cafeteria at Deaconess Medical Center last November, but when she saw Shannon Boyd, she couldn’t help it.

The two women were casual colleagues, nothing more, when Poppe spilled the story of her husband, Glen, and his quest for the donated kidney that could save his life.

After eight years of kidney disease and three years on a national transplant list, Glen Poppe had asked his 10 siblings – four brothers, six sisters – for help. But that afternoon, the Spokane Valley man learned that his last sibling had turned him down.

“When it came right down to it, they couldn’t do it, or wouldn’t do it,” recalled Netty Poppe, 46, an accountant.

“When Shannon said, ‘How are you?’ I just started crying.”

To Netty Poppe’s great surprise, Boyd offered a kidney of her own.

“I said, ‘Do you want me to see if I’m a match?’ ” recalls Boyd, 39, an administrative secretary in the Deaconess medical records department.

As it turned out, she was. And on May 15, Boyd’s left kidney, an organ nicknamed “Gertie,” was transferred to the 50-year-old body of Glen Poppe.

The gift has worked out well for everyone involved. It’s given Glen Poppe back his health and Netty Poppe the security of having her husband around. It’s given Shannon Boyd a way to repay the blessings she has received, including her nearly three-year marriage to her husband, Ken.

“I got everything I wanted,” she said. “It’s a way of giving back.”

And the transplant has brought two families – including seven kids – together in an uncommon bond.

“We’re getting to be a lot better friends now,” Boyd joked.

Advocates say the Spokane arrangement showcases the benefit of living donations, which have the potential to offset a drastic shortage of organs from cadavers.

Of the nearly 97,000 people in the United States waiting for organ transplants, nearly 73,000 are listed for kidneys, according to the latest figures from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN).

“If more people would donate, we could eliminate the kidney transplant waiting list,” said Monica Johnson-Tomanka, vice president of donation services for LifeCenter Northwest in Seattle.

But others say the practice raises questions about the ethics of seeking organs from family, friends and strangers.

Most people who donate organs do so out of a deep desire to help specific loved ones or friends, said Kay Glueckert, a Catholic chaplain and donor advocate with the kidney transplant program at Sacred Heart.

About 85 percent of live organ donors in the local program are related donors, family members or spouses of the recipients. Nearly 15 percent have been friends or acquaintances. A few donors have offered their organs anonymously.

“Some people are just more altruistic than other people,” Glueckert said. “Sometimes people are just good.”

Most of the folks she counsels are firmly committed to donating their kidneys and would feel deprived if the transplant were disrupted.

“This is something they really want to do,” Glueckert said.

Sometimes, though, people can feel pressured into considering organ donation. Family members, friends, even an internal sense of obligation, can exert influence, said Dr. Gail A. Van Norman, an anesthesiologist and bioethicist at the University of Washington in Seattle.

“Any time one person says, ‘I’ll give one part of my body to someone else,’ you have to consider that,” said Van Norman. “Losing a kidney is not something you do like falling off a log.”

A single kidney easily can do the work of two, and the transplant operation is common and relatively simple, according to OPTN.

Still, there are risks inherent in the transplant operation and beyond, the experts warn. Pain, temporary disability and the chance of infection or complication are possible. Some kidney donors must take extended time off work; others find it difficult to get health insurance afterwards. And there’s a remote chance that the donor’s remaining kidney will fail.

Ensuring that potential donors understand and accept the risks is crucial, Van Norman said. Live organ donation doesn’t pose the ethical dilemmas of other procedures, such as donation after cardiac death, or DCD, in which the donor doesn’t have a say in the process. But consent is the crucial element, she said.

“The argument about ethical principles might say that an altruistic person needs to be an autonomous person,” she said. “They can’t be pressured to donate that organ, they can’t be manipulated to donate that organ.”

All transplant programs require that potential donors meet with social workers and advocates who look for signs of coercion. Donors who decide they can’t go through with the procedure are offered face-saving explanations, Glueckert said.

“If the risks are too great or they don’t want to do it, we’ll tell the recipient, ‘I’m sorry, this is just not a match,’ ” she said. “There are a lot of reasons why you might not be a match.”

In practice, however, denying a donation is rarely that easy. Most family members demand to know the reason for the mismatch. And when the reason turns out to be reluctance, hard feelings can erupt.

Glen Poppe has spoken just once to his brother since their tense conversation last November. “And that was small talk,” he said.

Netty Poppe wasn’t so polite.

“I sent him an e-mail and told him off,” she said. “He told me my e-mail was ‘inappropriate.’ ”

The Poppes agree that no one should be pressured into donating an organ. At the same time, however, Netty Poppe admits her anger lingers.

“We were so surprised when family didn’t come through,” she said.

The flip side, however, has been their surprise at Boyd’s willingness to help.

Although she had never considered organ donation before, Boyd didn’t hesitate when she heard about Glen Poppe’s plight.

“It just felt like the right thing to do,” she said.

Poppe had suffered for years from IgA nephropathy, a disease in which a specific protein prevents the kidneys from filtering waste. In recent years, his kidney function had dropped from 50 percent to less than 20 percent.

Doctors told him to start asking relatives about organ donation, and Poppe was placed on the national kidney waiting list with nearly 73,000 other people.

“I got a few calls,” said Poppe, who waited for three years as his kidneys deteriorated. “But I was never the first recipient. I was always No. 2 or 3.”

It took six months from the initial blood tests to the May surgery, but Boyd said she never once wavered. In fact, she wishes the process had been quicker.

“I’m just a firm believer in fate,” Boyd said. “We share the same faith, and we know that God takes care of us.”

Doctors originally intended to remove Boyd’s right kidney, which she calls “Bruce,” but during the surgery they decided that the left one was a better match. It took more than four hours to remove the organ from Boyd’s body – and only an hour to transplant it into Poppe.

He kept both of his original kidneys, which still function a little. The new kidney was implanted in an area near his groin, where “Gertie” immediately began filtering Poppe’s body waste.

So far, Boyd and Poppe feel fine. She returned to work last month; he’s set to return next week to his job as a bus driver for the Spokane Transit Authority.

Both say they hope talking about their experience inspires others to consider living organ donation.

“It’s just to make it known that the need is there,” said Boyd. “I never really thought about it before.”

Ironically, the Poppes might confront the prospect of kidney failure again. Netty Poppe suffers from the same rare disorder as her husband, although her organs are functioning well enough now. She expects to control the problem with medication, but if the time comes for a transplant, they can only hope they’ll find another willing donor.

Asked how he’s expressed his gratitude, Glen Poppe smiled shyly at Boyd.

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “There’s not enough you can say.”