Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
A FRIEND IN NEED
Chesco employee gets life-saving kidney transplant—from co-worker one desk over
WEST CHESTER >> It’s a rare moment in time when the person who can save your life sits right next to you every day at work.
Just ask Kelly McMinimee, who in 2018 learned that she had reached end-stage kidney failure, and would be on dialysis continually thereafter until either she was lucky enough to find a donor for a transplant, or she died of the diabetes that claimed both her father and brother. Enter Britany Daptula. In January 2019, McMinimee bravely gathered the team of people she works with in the Chester County Adult Probation, Parole, and Pre-Trial Services and told them of her dire diagnosis, and her hopeful plans to apply for a transplant – a process that could take years as she searched for a match, either from a live donor or a deceased one. Without hesitation, Daptula, who works next to McMinimee in the department’s suite on the second floor of the county Justice Center, raised her hand.
“This one says, ‘I’ll do it. What’s your blood type?’” McMinimee, of Honey Brook, said in an interview last week, pointing to Daptula while discussing the series of events that led to scheduled transplant surgery at Lankenau Hospital in Lower Merion on Tuesday. “‘I am really serious. I’ll do this,’” McMinimee remembers her colleague saying.
“It just felt right,” said Daptula of her snap decision to offer one of her kidneys to help her friend find a healthy life. “I didn’t know much about it, but it was an intense learning experience.”
The pair were celebrated by their peers in the department – colloquially known as the county Bail Agency – on Friday, coincidentally National Organ Donor Day in the U.S., as they prepared to go on the weeks-long medical leave that is required in transplant cases. Daptula will have to recover from the loss of one of her kidneys, while McMinimee will have spend time letting her body accept the new organ.
The two said that in the months since they began the transplant/donor process, no one had ever heard of two co-workers providing the necessary match for a successful swap.
“Who would have guessed that this person sitting right next to me” would be the one to have a match, McMinimee marveled during the interview. “I get chills thinking about it. I’ve never heard of anyone getting a transplant from a colleague. It just doesn’t happen. And even though we are such a huge family in the office — we do so much for each other, at holidays, whenever — I’ve never heard of anyone doing it before.”
Christopher Murphy, the probation office’s director, echoed the positive feelings in the department about the news.
“I can only honor her gift by living the rest of my life to the fullest and paying it forward when I can. My family and I have been truly blessed.” — Kelly McMinimee
“Kelly has been dealing with this for a while, but you would never know it,” he said last week. “She is the consummate professional. She not only keeps up with her work for the courts, but also trains new staff and helps out without being asked.
“And it doesn’t surprise me that Britany has offered to donate one of her kidneys,” he continued. “Britany has always been the ultimate team player and always goes above and beyond in everything she does.”
Agreeing was Bruce McClure, the pair’s director supervisor in the office.
“It is not that surprising that Britany would do this,” McClure said in an interview. A 31-year-old U.S. Army veteran who lives in New Garden with her two children, “she is the sort of person who will put herself about others to help them.”
He, too, expressed amazement at the turn of events that led to the surgery.
“We’ve been praying for Kelly to have this happen. For it to be a colleague … In our opinion, she’s a hero. They are two of our best people.”
There are about 16,000 kidney transplants done in the United States each year. The statistics for success are high – between 83 percent and 94 percent – and those who accept a living donor’s kidney live between 12 and 20 years afterwards.
But it is no safe bet that a person suffering kidney disease who goes on a transplant list will get one; more than 3,000 new patients are added to the kidney waiting list each month, according to national statistics. Thirteen people die each day while waiting for a life-saving kidney transplant. In 2014, 4,761 patients died while waiting for a kidney transplant. Another, 3,668 people became too sick to receive a kidney transplant.
And even after Daptula volunteered to be a donor, it did not appear that it would be an easy accomplishment.
In the beginning stages of the match process at Paoli Hospital, Daptula was told that even though she approached being able to donate one of her kidneys to McMinimee, she was not, in fact, a true match, so the process might have to be halted. But the two said they learned that if Daptula agreed to be a donor for another person with whom she was a match, McMinimee would have improved chances of being paired with a donor across the U.S. She agreed to, and late last year learned after extensive testing at Lankenau, where the Main Line Health Kidney Transplant Program is located, that she was, indeed, a match for McMinimee.
“It’s small inconvenience for me,” Daptula said. “What is that compared to helping her out?”
McMinimee has grappled with the realization of what her diabetes could mean and the fear of what the future might hold for years. Her father, John M. Clayton, died of the disease at the age of 67 in 2009, while her brother “and best friend,” John S. Clayton, died of the same condition in 2017 at age 46. She is 49.
McMinimee learned that her kidneys were worsening some years back, and then was told of her Stage 5 condition two winters ago.
“It has been rough,” she said. “There have been a lot of sleepless nights” and five-day a week dialysis. Her thoughts turned to what might become of her sons, 24-year-old Robbie and 19-year-old Alex, and her husband, Robert McMinimee. “I can’t wait until I have a full night’s sleep.”
McMinimee paid tribute to those who had cared for her over the years, Dr. Manjula Naik of Exton and her dialysis nurse, Jennifer Reeder of West Chester. The transplant surgery will be performed by Dr. Carlos Ramirez.
“These people have been such a great support system,” she said.
McMinimee and Daptula will have several weeks to recuperate, and to think about the chance of fate that brought them together and the sacrifice that will now join them.
“As pretrial officers, Britany and I work to protect victims and the community from those that allegedly commit criminal offenses, but we also work to save the lives of those we supervise who suffer from drug addiction and mental health problems,” McMinimee reflected. “Now Britany is saving my life. Thank you will never be enough.
“I can only honor her gift by living the rest of my life to the fullest and paying it forward when I can,” she said. “My family and I have been truly blessed.”