Man owes life to new organ transplant program

AUGUSTA, Ga. - It often takes years to find a suitable donor for those who need organ transplants, now a new program is making the search much easier and a local man owes his life to it. A lot like a dripping I.V., Lee Kingery's time was running out. The doctors at MCGHealth diagnosed him with kidney failure years ago and without a transplant, he would die. "When the doctors tell you your kidneys are failing, it's kinda hard to deal with for a while," said Kingery. Lee turned to his family and his wife for help, but none of them could be matched with him. That's when doctors told him about the Alliance For Paired Donation. It's a program that matches families who want to give an organ to a loved one they're not compatible with to other families in the same situation that are compatible. "In a sense, when you would otherwise have two people going on the kidney waiting list, you can actually get two or more transplants done between these paired donors," said MCGHealth Transplant Surgeon, Dr. James Wynn. The program is how Lee met Lessa Ennis. She wanted to give her sick step-father a kidney and wasn't a match, but Lee's wife was. Through the program, Lee's wife flew to Colorado to give a kidney to Lessa's step-father, and Lessa flew from Texas to Augusta to give one to Lee. The surgeries were a success. "I don't think it's even sunk in that I don't have my kidney and it's next door," said Ennis laying in her room at MCGHealth. There are currently 80,000 people on the kidney transplant waiting list and it's a wait that's anywhere from three to 10 years long. "The need greatly outstrips the supply and if we can arrange for more living donor transplants to be done safely then it's a great approach to patients who need transplants," said Dr. Wynn. Two families once complete strangers thousands of miles apart, now just a hallway apart and forever in each other's hearts. Doctors say that in the short time the Alliance For Paired Donations has been running, they've done surgeries cross-matching as many as nine separate families at a time to get every patient the organs they needed.

 

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