DECATUR, Ill. (WAND) – Eight days after a kidney transplant Kevin Hale was back in Decatur and talking on the radio (TALK 101 FM) with me and our radio partner Scott Busboom. I never knew the pain Kevin was suffering up to that point.
Kevin is a Decatur teacher and baseball coach at Eisenhower High School. During the cool months of autumn, the cold days of winter, Kevin does color for high school radio sports broadcasts with Busboom.
Kevin needed a kidney. He was on dialysis several days a week and always managed to head to a baseball field to coach his team even through a bitter cold spring. Kevin never let on just how miserable he was.
“You’re dizzy. You’re sick,” Kevin said of his dialysis. “I told you about the cramping. There wasn’t a day my hamstrings and my calves didn’t cramp up.”
Kevin was on a waiting list for his kidney. Getting one became a problem because of his weight. Many hospitals won’t do a transplant on an overweight individual due to the risk of infection. But Kevin was not going to lose weight because of the fluids being pumped into him during dialysis.
“They kept telling me I had to lose 70 pounds. With all of the liquid weight I was putting on I literally said to them you’re giving me a death sentence,” he said.
The saving grace for Kevin was at the University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago. UIC does transplants on overweight people using robotics to reduce the risk of infections. For Kevin, his surgeon was Enrico Benedetti, MD, FACS.
“He walked in the room, sat down, and took my hand and he said it was cruel that they will not transplant overweight people,” Kevin related to me.
Kevin found a friend who agreed to be a living donor. Shortly before his transplant operation UIC called to say his donor was a better match for another patient and that patient’s donor was willing to give a kidney to Kevin. By agreeing to swap donors Kevin saved his own life and the life of another person. UIC could not use robotics on Kevin because of another medical condition but he still had his transplant.
Today, Kevin is preparing for the start of another school year as Decatur teens to return to the classroom in the coming days. Kevin says if he hears a cough he will have to put on a mask so he does not get sick. He is eating differently. His meats are cooked well done. He will take anti-rejection medicines for the remainder of his life.
Now, Kevin urges people to consider becoming an organ donor with 95,000 people in the U.S. needing a kidney.
“You may save a family. You might save a child and add to their life,” Kevin stated. “You might save a man like me, or a woman that is out there in the world that is in a lot of pain right now and suffering. You can end that by having the courage to donate your organs.”
To learn more about kidney donations go to the National Kidney Foundation website at: www.kidney.org
