Guest post by Sara Geatrakas, RN
As a post-kidney/pancreas-transplant coordinator I have been charged with helping patients thrive after transplant surgery. Healthcare providers can provide all the best medical advice, make all the proper medication adjustments and order all the newest and fanciest tests, but staying strong and healthy after a kidney transplant requires a dedicated and hard-working team, which doesn’t stop at Mount Sinai’s Recanati/Miller Transplant Institute (RMTI). Patients and their families are the most important, vibrant and vital part of this process.
One such remarkable team is Kevin Reilly and his family. I met Kevin, his sister Rosanne and his brother-in-law Brian at his first post-operative office visit, just nine days after his transplant. I was greeted with a big hug from Kevin. He showed me his surgical incision and told me how thankful he was to have received a new kidney. Kevin also showed off his scar to the transplant nurses on 9C after his transplant and remarked, “I love my new kidney!”
The road to transplant was not an easy one for Kevin and his family. Diagnosed with chronic kidney disease, he was referred to Mount Sinai for transplant evaluation. The hope was he could receive a kidney before he had to start dialysis. He came with four siblings, all determined to donate to their brother. One by one, they were ruled out as donors. Rosanne remarked, “it was devastating when we found out we weren’t a match to Kevin.” But there was still hope in the form of an National Kidney Registry (NKR) chain. The NKR is a paired exchange program that allows patients to receive living donor transplants, even when their own donor is not a match to them. Sometimes this is small and involves two donor/recipient pairs. Other times, such as in Kevin’s case, the chain is very large and involves many donor/recipient pairs from all over the country. Kevin and sister Judith were part of the largest chain in NKR history!
Kevin got his new kidney through this NKR chain one month after he had to start dialysis. Although he never complained about his treatments, Roseanne knew it was weighing on him. Kevin is an active and outgoing guy, and dialysis was definitely wearing him out. Both Kevin and his family have remarked on the “new man” he has become since his transplant.
It was clear from our first introduction that Kevin has a great team behind him. Each subsequent visit and phone call from his healthcare team involves not only Kevin, but his entire family. Their dedication and involvement are a large reason why Kevin is doing so well after his kidney transplant and why I, as his transplant coordinator, have little doubt he will continue to thrive.
At RMTI, we truly believe that we are but a small piece of a much larger puzzle in our patients’ lives and we are honored and humbled by the hard work and dedication our patients and their families demonstrate.