Texan is oldest living kidney donor in U.S.
Doctors urge all in good health to give as wait for organs rises
When one of her homeowner association’s primary movers and shakers called last fall to say he wanted to drop by, Linda Nall feared he was coming to tell her she needed to take down the sign in the yard.
The sign appealed for an O blood type donor kidney, which the 72-year-old Nall more and more urgently needed because hers were under attack by lupus and starting to fail. Nall figured the sign might have struck some in their Wimberley community as an eyesore, but Frank Dewhurst had something else on his mind.
“I’m O positive,” Dewhurst, the association’s past president and head of the grounds com
mittee, said upon greeting Nall. “I’m here to offer you my kidney.”
In Dewhurst’s mind, there was one catch: He was 84, an age he figured might be a deterrent to organ donation.
It wasn’t. After a series of tests confirmed he was sufficiently healthy to donate, surgeons at Houston Methodist Hospital last month transplanted one of Dewhurst’s kidneys into Nall, making him the nation’s oldest ever living kidney donor. He was just a few months short of being the world’s oldest.
The case also provides an important reminder, Methodist transplant doctors emphasized: There’s no cut-off age for organ donation.
“The issue is health, not age,” says Dr. Hassan Ibrahim, head of Methodist’s living kidney donor program.
“Kidney function doesn’t decline with age in most people so seniors can be donors as long as they don’t have cardiovascular disease or cancer or other major conditions,” Ibrahim said.
Organ donations from older people should occur more, and Ibrahim says that they would be welcome amid the shortage. Only one in three people who go on the kidney transplant list typically receive one in three years, after which most either die or become too unhealthy to remain eligible.
Currently, there are 93,000 people on the national kidney transplant waiting list. In 2018, about 21,000 got transplants, Ibrahim said. Five percent came from people over 65.
Setting a record was the furthest thing from Dewhurst’s mind. He’d never given organ donation any thought before noticing Nall’s signs, first in the back windshield of her husband’s Jeep, then in the front yard, just a few away from his own. One day, walking by the sign, he thought to himself, “Why not me?”
Nall did a little research, which showed the kidney remaining after transplantation attains 70 percent of the function both provide.
In older donors, who are by definition healthy the odds of developing renal disease after donating is actually lower than the general population, notes Ibrahim, though probably slightly higher than had they not donated.
Nall, who looks more like he’s in his 60s than 80s, figured to qualify as healthy, given “good genes,” a seafood and vegetable (or pescatarian) diet and a 10,000-step-a-day walking regimen. He nevertheless had to pass a battery of tests for cancer, infections, liver, lung and cardiac function and immune system and psychological health.
Nall was close to losing hope when Dewhurst knocked on her door back in September.
She’d been looking for a donor for more than 1½ years, but the signs, a Facebook page and a Tshirt proclaiming “I need a kidney transplant” had elicited only the occasional nibble, no concrete offer. She figured the best she could hope for a cadaver kidney, but guessed she was running out of time.
When Nall went in for pre-op testing, the labwork showed her kidney was in worse shape than previously thought.
“I couldn’t believe it when Frank offered to give his donation,” says Nall, now at Methodist recovering from a fall that fractured a hip. “It’s a miracle, a godsend. I can’t begin to thank him enough.”
Dewhurst ho-hums the altruistic act and new status as the nation’s oldest living kidney donor.
“No big deal,” says Dewhurst, a retired IBM engineer who knew Nall’s husband better than her. “I’m healthy and had what she needed, a functioning kidney. She wasn’t getting any better without one.”
Methodist surgeons removed one of Dewhurst’s kidneys and put it in Nall on April 30. The procedure took a little longer than expected because Nall had some anatomical challenges, but when it was finished, the transplanted kidney kicked in normally.
Dewhurst was discharged the next day, Nall four days later. Three weeks later, both say they feel great.
Earlier this week, at Methodist doing follow-up testing, Dewhurst dropped by Nall’s room to say hello and see how she and his spare part are faring.
“She’s got three kidneys now to my one,” said Dewhurst.
Though donations from seniors such as Dewhurst are rare, they do occur. Since 1995, more than 200 people over 70 have donated kidneys in the U.S., including an 80-year-old and 79-yearold at Methodist, Ibrahim said.
“At least a few times a week, I hear people in need of a kidney say they know someone who could be a donor except that they’re too old,” says Ibrahim.
“Hopefully, this donation can help correct the misconception — as long as you’re healthy, don’t deprive yourself of the chance to save someone’s life because of your age.”