What's a kidney between friends? ‘A true gift from God'

By Gracie Bonds Staples

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Chris Wilson and Cristina Zakis lay in adjacent operating rooms last week at Emory University Hospital being prepped for surgery.

Wilson, a 42-year-old father, needed a kidney, and Zakis, a 41-year-old mother, had offered one of hers.

Many Georgians have been in Wilson's place. Fewer have been lucky to find someone like Zakis.

Steve Wallace of the National Kidney Foundation -- which marked its 60th anniversary Monday -- says Georgia has the worst percentage of patients with chronic kidney disease in the country, roughly one out of every seven.

“It’s a staggering number,” said Wallace, president of the foundation's division serving Georgia and Alabama.

In addition, there are roughly 6,000 Georgians on the waiting list for transplants basically because there aren't enough live donors like Zakis willing to help.

“The kidneys of a living donor have a life span of approximately two times that of a cadaver or deceased donor in a transplant patient, so the reality is the kidney can live twice as long in a living donor,” Wallace said.

The story of how Wilson met his donor, Zakis, goes back to 1987 at the pool at the Catholic University of America in Washington, where he worked as a lifeguard. Wilson and Zakis weren’t close friends. They didn’t even travel in the same circles.

“You were in the party crowd,” Zakis said to Wilson half-joking during lunch a few days before the transplant.

But they were both Catholic and both grew up in Georgia, she in Lilburn and Wilson in Marietta, so they stayed in touch. When you’re a starving college student it’s always good to know someone from home. You might need a ride come Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Wilson graduated in 1991 and headed home with a degree in political science. Zakis returned to Georgia the next year with a degree in elementary education.

Over the next 10 years, they would neither talk nor see one another. Then, out of the blue, it happened.

Wilson was standing near the baptismal font at St. Stephen the Martyr Catholic Church with his wife, Kelley, when he spotted Zakis and her husband, Peter, a swimmer from their alma mater.

Naturally, they talked, each taking turns recounting the past few years of their lives. If they weren’t friends before, that was about to change.

The couples began hanging out at each other's homes. They signed up for a salsa dancing class. The Wilsons encouraged the Zakises to adopt their two boys, the first in October 2003.

That same year, just after his first son was born, Chris Wilson was stricken with a bad case of strep throat that spread to his kidneys, leaving the organs unable to function at full capacity. Chemotherapy helped, but Wilson’s kidneys never fully recovered.

Early this spring, he learned he needed a transplant or he would die.

Wilson found his donor in early April back at St. Stephen's baptismal font, the same place he was reunited with Peter and Cristina Zakis.

“Do you know what’s going on?” he asked Cristina Zakis that day.

“No.”

Wilson told her he needed a transplant and was looking for a donor.

“How do you find someone to donate a kidney?” she asked.

“I need an O positive blood donor,” he told her.

“I’m O positive,” Zakis said.

Wilson asked Zakis whether she would donate a kidney to him. She asked him whether it would save his life.

Minutes later during Mass, Zakis was on her knees singing, “Here I am, Lord; whatever your will,” when she answered her own question. “Let it be done.”

At home, she talked it over with her husband. There was no question. No hesitation.

Cristina Zakis began the testing process. She would be Wilson’s backup donor. Another woman, a stranger who had heard about Wilson's need in a prayer group, was donor No. 1.

Sometime during the tests, however, doctors discovered she had a bum thyroid. She no longer qualified. Zakis would have to do.

And so at exactly 7:30 a.m. Friday, there they were at Emory ready to make the transfer. At 8 a.m., doctors began the procedure, first putting Zakis under, then Wilson.

A surgeon, Dr. Kenneth Newell, performed a laparoscopy, a minimally invasive procedure to remove Zakis' kidney.

Dr. Thomas Pearson, the transplant surgeon, carried the organ into the room where Wilson lay. He had already made an incision in his lower abdomen to expose the blood vessels to which the new kidney would be attached.

Pearson, who has performed more than 800 such transplants in his career, reconstructed the blood vessels, attached the kidney and released the clamp to get blood flow to the kidney.

A few minutes later, he began the delicate procedure of attaching the donated kidney's ureter -- a duct that conveys urine -- to the bladder. Once that was done, Wilson’s new kidney began making urine that flowed through the ureter, into his bladder and out to a catheter that would be removed a couple of days later.

In just three hours the operation was over.

Sometime on Monday, Zakis went home.

Barring any complications, Pearson said Wilson will be released Tuesday.

The two friends, who live just miles apart, said they wanted to share their story for two reasons: to bear witness to the power of God and inspire other people to become living donors.

“It’s been a true testament to humanity and God’s grace,” Wilson said. “If you ever had any doubt about humanity. Walk a few steps in my shoes. It’s been an amazing journey. We’ve been extremely blessed with my angel on earth. Having a living donor is a true gift from God."