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At exactly 7:30 a.m. Friday, Dr. Harrison Pollinger will begin removing John Hembree’s left kidney using an minimally invasive procedure called robotic nephrectomy.
As he does, Dr. Miguel Tan, surgical director of kidney and pancreas transplantation at the Piedmont Transplant Institute, will be across the hall, prepping his patient for the transplant.
And in what will be Georgia’s first-ever “live tweet” of a robotic nephrectomy and living donor kidney transplant, Dr. Matthew Mulloy will be hunkered down at Piedmont Hospital, providing the 140-word play-by-play. The story also will be available on the hospital’s Facebook page, Pinterest, instagram and YouTube.
The doctors are hoping to leverage the powers of social media to increase awareness about the need for living organ donors and inspire medical students and physicians in training across the country to participate and ask questions during the live tweet.
“Social media is a part of so many aspects of our lives, it’s a great way to increase awareness,” said Pollinger. “Robotics is sort of a unique technology so the two married together nicely.”
According to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, there are 91,215 patients awaiting kidney transplantation in the United States. In all, 16,812 kidney transplants were performed last year in the United States — 11,043 from deceased donors compared to 5,769 from living donors.
That’s because, Tan said, while the number of people needing transplants goes up 3 to4 percent every year, the number of donors has remained the same.
“One of the ways to bridge that gap is through live organ donations,” Pollinger said.
Hembree, 53, of McDonough, first learned of the need for living donors last year while listening to a story on National Public Radio.
As Hembree began researching how he could become a donor, news began spreading at his Glen Haven Baptist Church about a young father named David Edwards who might have to go on dialysis if he didn’t find a kidney soon.
“I secretly began inquiring about David,” Hembree said recently.
At the end of August, he called the Piedmont Transplant Institute. He wanted to be a living donor for Edwards, who he’d only recently learned was also a member at Glen Haven.
Once he learned they both had A positive blood types, that their antibodies matched, Hembree zipped through the process, submitting to physicals, psychological and other evaluations.
On October 29, he got the good news. They matched perfectly.
But he had just one question: Why would God design a body with two kidneys when you only needed one to live if you weren’t suppose to give one away?
Neither doctors could answer, Hembree said.
“That’s when I knew I’d made the right decision.”
At 9:32 p.m. Nov. 4, Hembree sent Edwards a text. “There’s something in the mailbox for you.”
David Edwards, 43, had known for a long time he might need a kidney. Fourteen years earlier, he’d been diagnosed with polysistic kidney disease, a genetic disorder he inherited from his father.
Now his kidneys were functioning only at about 18 percent.
In July, doctors told him he needed a transplant. Glen Haven added him to the church’s prayer list. Members signed up to be tested.
By October, his kidney function had dropped even further. Edwards worried if he would ever receive a kidney, then that night in November, the text came.
His wife, Pam Edwards, drove up the hill from their home and retrieved a white envelop addressed to her, David and their two children, Luke and Abby.
Hembree, community liaison at Shorter College, had decided to give them the news the old fashioned way, a handwritten note with scratch-outs and mistakes. The next evening, he went to the Edwards home to thank them.
“Because of this,” he told them, “me and my family will experience the greatest Christmas ever.”
It will take Pollinger, who has been harvesting organs robotically since November 2011, about three hours to retrieve Hembree’s kidney and pass it on to Tan.
Mulloy, also a transplant surgeon, will provide minute by minute updates of the procedure and post photos along with previously recorded video clips of a previous donor. He also will respond to public comments and questions.
Research shows that kidneys that come from living donors are still functioning 15 years after transplantation, double the number still functioning from deceased donors.
Living donors tend to be healthier and the time between receiving a kidney and putting it into the body is a matter of minutes, Tan said.
In the time it will take Pollinger to retrieve Hembree’s kidney, Tan will have already made an incision in Edwards lower abdomen to expose the blood vessels to which the new kidney will be attached.
Once he has the kidney, he said, he will sew the blood vessels into Edwards, attach the kidney and release the clamp to get blood flow to the new organ.
Hembree, they said, will likely be dismissed sometime Saturday. Edwards will follow a few days later.
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