USA TODAY International Edition
Strangers forge bonds via kidney transplants
Todd Ramsdell, 40, had never met Emily King, 39, when he agreed to give her his kidney. The father of two worked with King’s mom and just knew he wanted to help.
When he went in for testing, however, he found he wasn’t a match.
Instead, Ramsdell was a match for Shannon Brink, 31, who had suffered from an autoimmune disease since she was a toddler.
King wasn’t left out of the equation. Thanks to an intricate hospital kidney exchange set up by the Henry Ford Transplant Institute, a donor who had agreed to come forward for Brink — Kara Dandar, 33, who was a friend of Brink’s husband — donated to King.
The life-saving swap was highlighted Wednesday morning at Detroit’s Henry Ford Hospital, where Ramsdell, King, Dandar, Brink and Brink’s friend SarahRae Andreski, 31 — who ended up not being a match for Brink but donated instead to another recipient on the West Coast — gathered to share how their lives would forever be tied thanks to the intricately woven exchange.
And they celebrate the successful operations that had dramatically improved the health of the recipients. Ramsdell, King, Dandar and Brink had the operations Sept. 27, and Andreski gave her kidney June 15.
“OK, I completely missed how this is all connected,” King said, laughing, as surgeon Lauren Malinzak detailed how the five individuals at the event linked together.
“You go to Kara. Shannon goes to Todd, and I stand here,” said Andreski, whose kidney went to a 55-year-old woman named Lori in Seattle. The various groups moved across the stage and embraced.
“I think the coolest thing is how it brings people together,” Andreski said.
She said she had heard that the woman to whom she ended up donating got in trouble the night after surgery for being “too talkative” and disturbing the other patients.
“So my family very much knew that she definitely got my kidney and possibly part of my spirit,” she said, laughing.
While the gathering was somewhat lighthearted, there were also moments of introspection. While the donors reported not feeling any different postsurgery, the recipients were able to speak thoughtfully about how much their lives had changed for the better.
“I feel totally different,” said Brink, who discovered her kidney was functioning at 38% when she went in for a routine hospital visit at the age of 18. She began actively searching for a donor after it later dropped to 12%.
“I was very, very sick; I had nausea every single day; I was so tired that I could barely make it through the day awake. I couldn’t even go upstairs without feeling like I had just run a marathon. Now I’m, like, running all over the house, and I’m totally energetic,” she said, turning to Ramsdell and thanking him.
Malinzak said an estimated 3,000 individuals in the state of Michigan are in need of a kidney, and 500 are on the list at Henry Ford. Exchanges like the one presented Wednesday highlight the real need for donors, as well as changes in the mindset around donations to strangers, she said.
“People are becoming more accepting and more comfortable with swapping donors. ‘You donate to my recipient; I’ll donate to your recipient,’ ” she said. A few years ago, this mentality was almost foreign, with many feeling like they would only donate to their immediate family, she said.
“People weren’t so open-minded about it, where now when we educate donors and talk about donation, we are more open to doing what works for the group, what works for the community, not just what works for that one recipient.”
“People are becoming more accepting and more comfortable with swapping donors. ‘You donate to my recipient; I’ll donate to your recipient.’ ”
Lauren Malinzak
Detroit-based surgeon