The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
4-way kidney transplant recipients meet for first time
Donors, recipients meet for the first time
“Thanks to these two people, amazing angels, and I will always, always be grateful.” Angelinne Linares
NORWALK — Angelinne Linares isn’t one to say she’s not feeling well.
Even after seven years of chronic fatigue, nausea, hospital stays and kidney infections all related to a genetic kidney disease, she still could not bring herself to ask for help. She was looking at a future on dialysis as she waited for a kidney transplant from a non-living donor.
But her younger sister, Jasmin Linares, 25, wasn’t about to wait for her to ask.
“She’s the oldest of six and she always wants to be the strong one,” Jasmin Linares said.
“She doesn’t talk about how she’s feeling. She didn’t talk about it but I saw it . ... So when my dad told me what was going on, I went to visit her and told her, ‘I want to do this. I want to at least get tested (to be a kidney donor).’ She said, ‘I’m not asking you to do that, I can’t ask you to do that,’ and I said, ‘I know you’re not asking me. I’m telling you I’m going to do it.’ ”
The younger Linares wasn’t an exact match, but the doctors at the Center for Living Donors at YaleNew Haven Hospital had a solution, if it was OK with the Linares sisters, who are longtime Norwalk residents.
A woman from Middletown, N.Y., Alison Cain, also needed a kidney transplant. She had a willing donor — her cousin, state Superior Court Judge Matt Budzik — but like the Linares sisters, they were not an exact match.
As luck would have it, Jasmin Linares’ healthy kidney was perfect for Cain, and Budzik’s was perfect for Angelinne Linares.
The donors agreed without a second thought, though they had never met each other or the recipients of their respective kidneys.
The four-way kidney swap surgery took place Oct. 31, and on Tuesday, all four met for the first time.
“How often do you get to do some real good in the world?” Budzik said. “It was an honor. It was an easy process both to decide and to go through. My mother was a kidney transplant patient. I know what it’s like to watch someone on dialysis.”
Cain had been on the waiting list for a kidney for two years. Linares was put on the list in April 2016, and told it could take up to six years to find a donor. The average wait time is three to five years for a deceased donor’s kidney. Now, a little over a year and a half after Linares was first told she needed a transplant, she and Cain are off the waiting list and in good health, freeing up space for others in need.
“She has given me a better life because if she wouldn’t do that, I don’t know where I would be right now,” Linares said of her sister, Jasmin.
“On dialysis or soon to be on dialysis. I was praying every day because I have a 7-year-old at home and I wanted to give him more of me. I was tired, no energy. Finally I got it. Thanks to these two people, amazing angels, and I will always, always be grateful.”
Dr. Sanjay Kulkani, who performed the surgery to remove the healthy kidneys from the donors, said often people assume they must be a match to be a living kidney donor. But the kidney exchange program, which is just over a year old, develops matches between incompatible pairs using sophisticated gene, tissue and blood matching to facilitate living donor transplants. The program has become a model for fostering a living donation, he said.
Though they were perfect strangers at the beginning, the Linares sisters, Budzik and Cain said they are now connected forever after their emotional reunion.
Tears flowed as they thanked each other for the donation, and now, after years of strict diets to prevent further kidney deterioration, Cain and Angelinne Linares will enjoy hearty Thanksgiving meals with their families.
“We did not know each other going in, but we’ll know them for the rest of our lives,” Cain said. “There’s no words. They gave me a quality of life back. I have three kids. I can attend their weddings and meet their children instead of being sick on the couch.”