San Luis youth continues recovery in Phoenix after kidney transplant
A San Luis youth is now resting and recuperating at Ronald McDonald House in Phoenix after a successful surgery earlier this month to give him a new kidney.
Aldo Sotelo, 17, was released Wednesday from Phoenix Children’s Hospital, where he underwent the nearly five-hour transplant surgery on July 19. He is expected to remain for several weeks at the nonprofit organization’s Phoenix house, which provides lodging for outof-town patients and their families during the recovery process.
His mother, Betzabeth Garcia, said her son’s doctor told them his recovery has been faster and easier than had been expected.
Sotelo said Wednesday he was experiencing some post-surgery pain. But, he added, “it is a great gift, from a person who died but who had decided to be an organ donor.”
Sotelo was born with undersized kidneys with deformities, and doctors had told his parents not to expect him to live beyond infancy. Sotelo went on to attend school in the Gadsden Elementary School District, playing an instrument in that district’s noted marching band, and then moved on to San Luis High School.
He underwent nightly dialysis treatments during his senior year but still graduated in May.
Sotelo had been placed on a list for a kidney in April 2017, and his family was told to come to Phoenix on repeated occasions after potential donors had been found. But each time they returned home without a transplant being done, either because the organ ended up being incompatible or it was needed more urgently by another patient.
Then this month he was called back to Phoenix again.
“The truth is that I didn’t get too excited when they told me I had to be ready at 6 in the morning for them to operate on me, because eight other times they ended up not being able to do it. But when they told me they were taking me to the operating room because the kidney was mine, that’s when I felt very happy.”
Garcia said the family is looking for a longer-term place for Aldo to stay in Phoenix while he undergoes extended post-operative care, owing to the fact that medication given to him before the surgery tends to reduce the body’s immune system.
“He will be under a lot of restrictions the next three months, but everything indicates that it’s going well,” she said. “All of this is a gift from God, and we are very thankful to all the people who have prayed for my son and who have shown support in different ways.”
Confidentiality rules do not allow Sotelo to find out who was the donor of his kidney.
“Some day I would like to know who it was,” Sotelo said. “Usually you don’t get to know, unless the (donor’s) relatives allow it.”