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Notes: These stories reprinted with permission from The Standard Banner. Thank you very much Standard Banner! First story originally printed in The Standard Banner on August 8, 2000; the second on April 26, 2001.
Renee Jarnigan's Transplant Story
by
STEVE MARION, Staff Writer for The Standard Banner
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Jesse and Renee Jarnigan
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FIRST STORY: August 8, 2000
The odds were one in a million.
But a green toboggan was pulled down over Jesse Jarnigan's ears as he directed traffic above Rutledge in coke Hill Ridge. Black ice on the s-curve had already put a couple of drivers in the ditch. Now the black ice was covering with white snow. jarnigan was a little surprised to see a blonde woman walking up the road toward him through the swirling snowflakes. He was a little more surprised, though, when she made a disparaging comment about his green hat.
"I think I ran my mouth a little bit," Renee jarnigan recalled. "I've been known to do that. I think I said, "Like that ugly 'boggan!' or something like that."
Jesse didn't say anything. He just kept directing traffic. After all, this was an accident scene and he, a deputy with the Grainger County Sheriff's Department, was out here freezing and risking his life to help the public. If some unappreciative member of that public didn't like his toboggan, which anybody could see matched his uniform pants, he was tough enough to take it and not say a word.
"I should have had her car towed," he said, grinning. Instead, he asked her to marry him. Well, mot right there on Coke Hill Ridge in the snow. It was actually a couple of years later. First, they got to know one another better because it turned out that he worked part time as a security guard at high school ball games, where she taught and served as cheerleading coach. It took him a while to ask her out on a date, but finally he did. They talked on the telephone for a long time, and he asked if he could come over the next day.
"It snowed, of course," she added. "It snowed six inches. We had agreed on six-thirty. Well, six-thirty rolled around and then seven and I was beginning to wonder if I was going to get stood up."
Meanwhile, Jesse was plowing his way to Jefferson City from Rutledge in his four-wheel-drive, only to get blocked by a stuck eighteen-wheeler less than a mile from her place. A little after seven, Renee's phone rang.
"Is there a back way to your house?"
"It's all right, Jesse," she said. "We can do this some other time."
"Let me tell you something," he said. "I just drove from Rutledge in six inches of snow. I'm getting to your house one way or another."
Renee laughs when she remembers it.
"You better believe he drove over here the backway. Going home, he said he made his first set of tracks on some of the roads."
If this were just a nice love story, it might stop here. They got married and lived happily ever after. You might throw in that Jesse, being old-fashioned, didn't ask to kiss her until their sixth date ("I was beginning to think I had bad breath or something," she recalled), and formally asked her father for her hand in marriage.
But there are more miracles involved here than in your usual love story. This morning, in an operation at University of Tennessee Medical Center, Jesse will donate one of his kidneys to Renee, who has been on dialysis since May due to a progressive disease. It's not unusual to find a blood relative who can serve as a kidney donor, but the chances of a husband being able to help save his wife's life are literally one in a million, doctors say.
"I don't see how we could be any closer, Renee said. She had been diagnosed with Alport Syndrome when she was a little girl, and the disease, which eventually causes renal failure, damaged her hearing and eyesight early on. Renee, who has always been physically active, ignored the problem as long as she could, but in April doctors told here that could not continue.
As an officer, Jesse, who is now a detective, has made dozens of eye and blood runs to Knoxville hospitals, but he never dreamed that one day he would be a transplant donor himself. After doctors told Renee that her kidneys had ceased functioning, and a transplant was the only way for her to avoid a lifetime of thrice-weekly dialysis, Jesse spoke up and said, "I want to be tested."
Okay, they said, adding that there would be little chance of a match. At first, there was fear that testing Jesse would just add to the difficulties. Already, Renee's father Bill Shands was frustrated because doctors had told him his age would prevent him from serving as a donor for his daughter.
First, the couple's blood types matched.
"But we weren't too hopeful just then," Renee said, "because there is a lot more to it than that. It took a month and a half of testing."
Finally, doctors said the results would be known on a Friday, a day it so happened that Jesse and Renee were helping lead a school field trip to Nashville. They called, and sure enough, it was a match.
"But there was one more test," Renee said. "They had to mix our blood together and see if one rejected the other, but it didn't."
When that one worked out perfectly, "I just started crying," Renee said.
The operation is more extensive on Jesse's part than Renee's. It involves a large incision, and possibly the removal of a couple of lower ribs so his left kidney can be removed. His recovery will take longer, and he'll have to be out of work at least four weeks. Still he seems more concerned about being apart from Renee.
"They are going to put us back together as soon as possible," he said. "I guarantee you that."
The couple's experiences with dialysis have shown them the importance of organ donation. Three times a week, Renee leaves for the North Knoxville Dialysis Center at 5:30 a.m., and the process, though painless, takes until lunchtime.
"I knew kind of what to expect," she said, "but I walked in and saw all the people, a lot of older people and some in wheelchairs, and it just hit me in the face. I realized that without a transplant, they would be there, three times a week, for the rest of their lives."
Dialysis costs about $15,000 per month. Patients must wear a shunt in order to be hooked up to the machines, and they can't go on vacation without making plans ahead of time for dialysis there.(**)
According to the National Kidney Foundation of Tennessee, 500 people in the state are currently on the transplant list -- 150 in East Tennessee. Of the 350,000 Americans on dialysis, only one in ten receives a transplant. Yet, about 20,000 people last year (accident victims, etc.) were considered "brain dead" and met qualifications for organ donation, and only 5,500 actually became donors. It's not enough to sign the organ donation card on your driver's license. Organ donors must tell family members as well.
Renee said Dr. James Ogrodowski has told her that the disease will not affect the new kidney, and that she should be able to lead a pretty normal life-- though she will have to take anti-rejection drugs. She also says that even though she feels blessed, she will still miss the people at the dialysis center.
"They are the most wonderful, caring people I've ever met," she said.
She and Jesse were planning to deliver them a load of Grainger County tomatoes late last week.
The operation is scheduled to begin early this morning. Late last week Jesse and Renee were laughing and joking as they talked about it. It wasn't that they didn't seem concerned, but they didn't seem too nervous or scared either.
"We believe the Lord had a lot to do with this," Renee said.
"He didn't have a lot," said Jesse. "He had everything."
Renee laughed. "You see, there must have been a reason for that ugly green toboggan."
"There was," said Jesse. "It was cold outside."
NKFET site note: applies only to hemodialysis. Peritoneal dialysis patients can travel more freely due to a different type of schedule (not to mention a different type of dialysis).
SECOND STORY: April 26, 2001
She used to be cold-natured. Now she stways warm most of the time. "I used to be a picky eater, too," Renee Jarnigan recalls. "But lately I eat just about anything in sight."
Life has changed in all kinds of wways since Renee, of Jefferson City, became the recipient of a kidney transplant last August. Suffering from Alport Syndrome, a progressive disease which had caused her own kidneys to stop functioning, she had begun thrice-weekly dialysis when doctors discovered a one-in-a-million donor who was a perfect match. He's the guy Renee calls her "hero." He also happens to be her husband, Jesse.
"I feel wonderful, like a total new person," she said, getting ready to swim laps at the Jefferson City Community Center Tuesdway afternoon. "Jesse sways it's no wonder, because he gave me a good kidney. He must be right, because I've got so much energy I don't know what to do with it all."
Actually, she does have ambitious plans for some of that newfound energy. Renee is currently in training to compete in the 2002 U.S. Transplant Games in Orlando, Florida. And, by helping promote events such as the upcoming National Kidney Foundation "Gift of Life" Run/Walk, she is working hard to bring attention to the 75,000 Americans hoping for a second chance at life through organ transplantation.
"I'm just very thankful," Renee said. "I want to do everything I can to help people who facing what I faced."
Renee returned to her work as a teacher at Rutledge High School last November, and Jesse is back to his career in law enforcement. He's now a patrolman for the Rutledge City Police, and this summer he will be working a second job as a Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency boating officer. "We're both doing real well," Renee said. "Jesse sways he can't tell any difference in the wway he feels."
The couple found out about the Transplant Games in February. They attended a reunion for transplant recipients, and Renee, who competed on the swimming team in high school, heard them talking about the 2002 games.
"I got interested really quick," she said. "I love swimming and the water,
so I started wondering if I could compete again. I think it will also be a great wway to meet new friends who have been through the same thing I have."
Right now, Renee is one of 25 transplant recipients who have signed up to compete on Team East Tennessee, which is being managed by Russell Figueira of the National Kidney Foundation of East Tennessee. Other than training for the event, the team's first priority is finding tax-deductible donations to make the trip to Orlando possible. You can find out more about helping by calling the number at the end of this article.
Judging from the wway Renee was swimming laps at the indoor community center pool, she'll easily be ready to compete before the event at Walt Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex June 26-29 next year.
The games are being sponsored by Novartis, maker of a anti-rejection drug for transplant recipients. Anyone who has had a successful organ transplant, including kidney, liver, heart, lung, pancreas, and bone marrow, for a year, can qualify to become a member of the team. They can compete in sports, which include but not be limited to, cycling, bowling, golf, racquetball, swimming, and track and field.
The 2002 U.S. Transplant Games will call attention to the more than 75,000 Americans who are waiting for a life-saving organ transplant and the desperate need for more organ donors in this country. Each month more than 2,000 names are added to the national organ transplant waiting list. Every dway 12 to 16 people die waiting for an organ transplant. There are far too many waiting and far to few donors. Signing up to become an organ donor is as easy as signing the back of your drivers license, and then discussing it with your family or letting a relative know what your desire is, if the occasion should arise.
In the meantime, East Tennesseans can also support the National Kidney Foundation at the second annual "Gift of Life" Run/Walk on Saturdway, June 9, at Cherokee Park in Knoxville.
Proceeds from the fund-raising event go to benefit the thousands of dialysis and transplant patients in the greater Knoxville and surrounding areas. The Gift of Life Run/Walk is an event that celebrates organ and tissue donation, and brings attention to the fact that there are 75,000 Americans waiting for a second chance at life through transplantation. Twelve to sixteen people die every dway while on the transplant waiting list, and over 2000 people are added to that list daily.
In East Tennessee there are over 1,700 men, women and children on some type of life-saving treatment for kidney or urinary tract disease. The National Kidney Foundation of East Tennessee is dedicated to prevention of urinary tract and kidney disease and to the improvement and well being of individuals and family members that are affected by these diseases. The National Kidney Foundation of East Tennessee receives no federal assistance but raises its funds through local United Wway Agencies, private donations, and special events such as the Gift of Life Run/Walk. The National Kidney Foundation of East Tennessee uses less than 10% of its overall budget for operations and devotes the rest to providing patient services, education and research.
"Dialysis is really tough on patients and their families," Renee said. "It's painless, but it's a three times a week, four hours a dway ordeal. I wish more people were aware of the desperate need for transplant donors."
To become involved with the Transplant Games team, call Russell Figueira, Team Manager, at (865) 688-5481 or e-mail Russ@kidneyetn.org. The Team meets every 3rd Tuesdway, at 6:30PM, at Ryan's Steak House, on Cedar Lane, in Knoxville. More information is also available on the National Kidney Foundation of East Tennessee's web site at http://www.kidneyetn.org. For more information about how to register for the "Gift of Life" Run/Walk, call Jon Elder at (865)688-5481 or e-mail jon@kidneyetn.org.
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