QUICK TRANSPLANT FACTS
— There were more than 450 kidney transplants in Georgia in 2013, with more than 160 coming from living donors.
— There have been more than 8,400 kidney transplants in the state since 1988, with about a third coming from live donors, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
— Donations between spouses have become more common — making up about 10 percent of all kidney transplants in the U.S., said Dr. Robert Montgomery, who heads the transplant center at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore.
The February ice storm complicated Valentine’s Day plans for many — but perhaps none more than those of Stan and Tami Denney.
Stan, a technology specialist and 32-year Georgia Power veteran, was part of an army of utility workers scrambling to restore power to hundreds of thousands of customers left in the dark by the epic storm that hit Feb. 11. He was also supposed to give a kidney to Tami on Feb. 14.
Georgia’s second big storm of the winter upended life for millions of people. Though it’s doubtful anyone at Georgia Power would have made a fuss if Stan sat out round two, the 54-year-old Newnan man worked 18-hour shifts through the eve of the transplant to help line workers get lights back on.
“I kept assuring her it ought to be clear” in time for the surgeries, Stan said. “I’ll be able to get home.”
Stan and Tami married on a humid August day nearly 25 years ago. Their vows were old-school: stick together for better or for worse, in sickness and in health.
A blood pressure condition destroyed Tami’s father’s kidneys and led to his death at age 38. Three years after she married Stan, the same condition had raided Tami’s kidneys. She needed a transplant.
Tami’s mother stepped up as a donor when Tami was 31.
Last June, her nephrologist told Tami her borrowed kidney was wearing out. Tami said she and Stan always knew she’d need another. Kidneys from a living donor can last about 20 years. She got 21 out of her mom’s.
Kidney failure is a terrible thing. Tami, 52, said her joints ached from gout, she suffered from severe nausea and as her kidneys withered, the fatigue left her with no energy. She’d come home from her job as a paralegal for Chick-fil-A exhausted.
The clock was ticking for her to start dialysis, a treatment that takes hours for several days each week to, among other things, filter toxins from the blood that build up because the kidneys no longer function.
The doctor told Tami and Stan to ask friends and relatives if anyone would be willing to give her an organ.
Stan offered to be tested first.
“He never hesitated,” Tami said.
Their son Trey offered as well, as did some of Tami’s coworkers at Chick-fil-A’s corporate offices.
A ‘true match’
By November, doctors put Tami on a national registry for organ transplants, but they also started the evaluation process to see if Stan was a possible donor.
It started with a phone interview, screenings that gauged Stan’s lifestyle, eating and physical habits and family history. Doctors at Piedmont Atlanta Hospital performed a rigorous medical and psychological work-up.
There were x-rays, CT scans and exams to rule out heart disease, cancer and other ailments. He said he gave so much blood he felt like a pincushion. The January tests looked promising — they had the same blood type — but more analysis was needed.
One afternoon in mid-January, Stan got a call from the transplant coordinator. “She said, ‘Everything worked out. You are a true match for Tami.’”
After more tests the surgery date was pushed from the end of January to Valentine’s Day. Stan and Tami’s birthdays are in February – two days apart – and the month has always held special meaning, Tami said. Now it would be doubly so.
But on the weekend before surgery, forecasters predicted a devastating storm, and like other Georgia Power workers, Stan had to mobilize to Henry County. Stan is a distribution support specialist at Georgia Power’s downtown Atlanta campus. He helps develop and maintain software that crews use to respond to outages.
Tami had her pre-op appointments the Monday before the storm. Stan was set to have his that Thursday, but doctors at Piedmont moved it up to Tuesday as the front barreled into Georgia. Afterward he returned to the Henry County staging area to help with the pending storm.
“I told him, ‘I know you are a busy man, but give me this kidney and then you can get back to work,’” Tami said, with a gentle laugh.
Stan finally got home Thursday night, about 12 hours before the Denneys’ Valentine’s date with the surgeons. The Denneys were exhausted, but they said they were ready to go.
‘At total peace’
The drive from their Newnan home to Piedmont’s Buckhead campus took about an hour. The ice had largely disappeared and no one was on the road as they made the pre-dawn trek into town.
Tami said she was “at total peace” going into surgery.
“I feel like God has had his hand on us through this entire journey,” she said.
At the hospital, Stan and Tami hugged goodbye. Tami said she told Stan “I love you and thank you,” as they parted for surgery.
Dr. Eric Gibney, medical director of kidney and pancreas transplant programs at Piedmont, said the hospital’s transplant center performs about 160 kidney transplants a year, with about half coming from living donors. The organs function from the moment they’re implanted.
Improvements in anti-rejection treatments have increased the number of donations from spouses, he said. A Conyers man gave a kidney to his ailing wife around Valentine’s Day just last year, Gibney said.
Several hours after surgery, Stan walked the hallway from his room to see Tami. Though she felt pain from the surgery, the achy joints and other problems were gone, Tami said.
Since surgery, Tami said her doctor told that her new kidney is functioning better than his.
“I really didn’t think I was going to be a match,” Stan said. “I thought the odds were stacked against me.”
“It was meant to be,” Tami said.
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