By JOANNE L. PAPAIANNI
Edward Zakerowski, a member of the Neptune City Board of Education, demonstrated his love for his mother by donating one of his healthy kidneys to her.
Frances Lovely, 64, had suffered from the deterioration of her kidneys brought on by the use of high blood pressure medicines for three decades.
“She had a long deterioration of her kidney function due to high blood pressure medicines – since her 30s, and then diabetes kicked in,” he said.
Zakerowski said when his mother’s kidney function went below 15 percent she was forced to spend four hours a day, three days a week hooked up to a dialysis machine.
“I didn’t want to see my mother live like that,” he said.
“I’m so proud of my son for donating his kidney,” Lovely said. “When you are on dialysis for a long time it does a lot of damage.”
Although she did not have any adverse affects of the dialysis, Lovely said she is not going to miss the time-consuming procedure.
Lovely said doctors had been watching her kidney function for the past 12 years.
“I had a swollen ankle and they couldn’t figure out why. They gave me a water pill that didn’t do anything,” she said.
Now almost six weeks after the surgery, Lovely said, “I’m feeling fine, I just thank God I’m alright.”Zakerowski went back to work Sept. 2 after a six week recuperation leave from the July 22 surgery.
Zakerowski said he used his accumulated sick days from his job at the Neptune Township Sewerage Authority.
But Zakerowski, 45, said his boss offered him his sick days if he did not have enough of his own.
The surgery was done at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital which has a kidney transplant team. Once Lovely was put on dialysis in October, health insurance kicked in to pay for her and the donor’s surgeries.
“They work side by side with the surgical team,” he said. “They have a 98 percent success rate.”
Zakerowski endured a month of testing, blood work and CAT scans, to determine if he was a suitable donor.
“It all proved out that I was a good donor,” he said.“They said we’re ready to take you, there’s no need to test anyone else.”
Zakerowski, who has a brother, said he was the first one to raise his hand when his mother needed a donor.
The risks to donors are small, but as Zakerowski said, “Nobody has a crystal ball in all of this…some people are born with one kidney and live to be 110.”
Being a close blood relative is preferable to anonymous donors, he said.
Zakerowski explained that the life expectancy of a family donor’s kidney is higher at 15 to 25 years than a kidney from a deceased person, which is six to 10 years.
“The time lapse, getting it to the hospital and prepping it for surgery….” Zakerowski said.
He said with current medications doctors can make almost any kidney transplantable, but long term success is better with a live donor.
“The closer the match the better – they have me in the next room and they just walk it over 20 feet and put it in my mom,” he said. “And she is gaining 13 years on the life expectancy.”
Zakerowski said doctors performed laparoscopic surgery on him, making two small incisions on his left side and a small five inch scar near his belly button.
“They make a four inch cut, move my stomach over and hold my kidney while they cut the vein and the artery and the kidney drops,” he said.
“Within an hour my mother was producing urine and her blood sugar dropped from over 200 to 80 immediately.”
Although he only has a small incision Zakerowski, who spent four days in the hospital, said the surgery took more out of him than his mother.
“I called her the day after I got home early in the morning, I was in bed. My brother answered the phone and I asked if mom was sleeping. He said are you kidding she’s been up for two hours. She’s downstairs making breakfast…and she’s been on the go ever since.”
Zakerowski said the donor has a harder recuperation than recipient because the donor’s body has to adjust to the loss of the organ but the recipient has been in such bad shape, their body reacts immediately to having the organ function restored.
“The body has to get used to loss of kidney on my end,” Zakerowski said. “My mom’s body has been in bad shape.”
While both were recovering after surgery, Frances, still groggy, reached out to hold her son’s hand and said, “Ed, I just want to thank you for the kidney.”
“She never asked me to donate,” Zakerowski said. “The type of person she is, she isn’t going to ask anybody for anything. I just wanted to do this for her. I couldn’t do this for a better person – she’s a mom, she brought her up two kids…”
But he added, the whole family is happy.
Zakerowski, who has three children, said being a donor comes with few perks, but getting put to the top of the national donor list is one of them.
If he ever needs an organ donation, his name will be at the top, following children and those whose lives are in peril.
Lovely goes for follow up visits, that the family calls fine tuning, twice a week and is hoping to have her long list of medications down to three in six months.
The doctor told Zakerowski that just like her name she is doing “lovely.”
Zakerowski said the community of Neptune City helped the family.
“My lawn was always cut,” he said.
And mothers from his daughter’s soccer team made dinners for the family for the first week he was home from the hospital.
“It really took a load off us, my wife was waiting on me hand and foot.”
Zakerowski said his mother looks and feel good.
“You wouldn’t’ even know she had a problem,” he said.
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