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Monday, November 9, 2009 2:16 AM EST
Woman recovering after kidney replacement
By Kate Day Sager
Olean Times Herald
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| Teresa Brunner (foreground) recently received a kidney from a donor after a two-and-a-half-year wait. Also shown is her mother, Dorothy Brunner, and the family dog, Dustmop.
Photo by Kate Day Sager/Olean Times Herald |
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OLEAN – During the past two and a half years, Teresa Brunner had kept a packed bag of clothes at her house just in case a phone call would come telling her that a kidney donor had been found for her.
A little over a month ago, that phone call finally came through with the voice on the other end telling her to come to the Erie County Medical Center (ECMC) in Buffalo as soon as possible for a transplant operation.
Now, over a month after receiving a new kidney, Ms. Brunner of Olean is feeling better and ready to resume her old life that included spending time with her teenage daughter, Aysha, and her mother, Dorothy Brunner.
“It was a perfect match all the way across,” Dorothy Brunner said of her daughter’s kidney transplant on Oct. 6. She said the donation came from an individual in Oklahoma.
After Teresa Brunner was diagnosed with kidney failure in 2007 due to hereditary kidney disease, her life was turned upside down. For starters, she had to receive dialysis treatments three times a week at the Dialysis Center at Olean General Hospital. She also had countless doctor visits, hospitalizations because of poor health and numerous surgeries at ECMC to implant shunts. In addition to that, she had been on the transplant list at the Buffalo hospital with hopes that a match would be found. When nothing came through after a year and a half of waiting, the Brunners contacted the Times Herald for help last January.
Dorothy Brunner said she believes the publicity that appeared in the Times Herald and on the Western New York Kidney Connection Web site likely helped her daughter find a donor.
“It helps, because we had other people offer to donate to her (after articles were published) but the circumstances weren’t right,” Dorothy Brunner said. “I think it makes a difference, rather than just sitting in the background. The squeaky wheel gets greased.”
Teresa Brunner said she was in surgery for approximately five hours and was released from the hospital after a five-day stay.
“Now it’s just a matter of getting her medicine adjusted,” Dorothy Brunner said of the two types of anti-rejection medicine her daughter is taking. Doctors expect her recovery to take about three months.
Dorothy Brunner said that as a result of what her daughter has been through, she is considering donating one of her own kidneys to another Olean resident, if possible.
“When you’ve been down the road and see what these people have to go through, and you can help them, you’re going to want to do it,” she said. “And there are so many young people who have this problem.”
Jeanette Ostrom of the Kidney Connection said she was very pleased with the “fantastic news” of Teresa Brunner’s transplant.
“It is true that when someone puts a profile on the Western New York Kidney Connection and family and friends see it - it makes it real to them and they come forward to donate,” Ms. Ostrom said. “When someone is on the waiting list for a kidney, they are just a number. One number out of thousands who are waiting for the same thing.
“But to actually see their picture and read their story, and stories from other people who have donated, then they realize that they can save a life and many are happy to give this gift.”
As for Teresa Brunner, she said she is anxious to get back to resuming her normal activities, such as exercising at the Olean Family YMCA.
“I can’t wait until I get my life back,” she said.
For more information on the Kidney Connection organization, visit the Web site kidneyconnection.org, or contact Ms. Ostrom at (716)450-8958.
(Contact reporter Kate Day Sager at kates_th@yahoo.com.)
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