19-year-old gives friend a kidney
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Faced with watching a lifelong friend suffer through dialysis, a 19-year-old Cooper City native donates one of his kidneys.The night before Jonas Read became a kidney donor, his mother was almost frantic. Dressed in his hospital gown, he mocked her concern: ``Oh, no, you can't go driving around. What if you get in a car accident? No, you can't do this because you're gonna die. No, you can't do that because you're gonna die. Everything was gonna kill me!''
To calm her, Read, 19, said: ``If I die, give Austin my kidney.''
Just hours away from his surgery last month to donate one of his two healthy kidneys to free his lifelong friend from the clutches of dialysis, this teen with dirty-blond hair, button earrings, chin stud and platinum beard was all too calm about becoming a donor.
The surgery at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center was his moral obligation, he felt, to help Austin Pence, 22, a friend since both were toddlers modeling on South Beach, earning $75 an hour. ''We were so young back then,'' Read says.
He's so young now, as well, to be making such a life-saving decision that he considers ``no big deal.''
But it is a big deal. As with all major surgeries, there are risks -- infection, pneumonia, blood clots, death. There's also the risk of a collapsed lung because of its proximity to the kidney. And although studies have shown living with one kidney does not increase health risks, heavy trauma could lead to the loss of a single kidney -- and dire consequences.
The benefit of donor surgery, however, is the gift of life.
In the decades since kidney transplants first appeared as leading-edge surgery, the procedure has become increasingly common -- more than 16,000 were performed last year. Most transplants involve one family member donating to another, but friend-to-friend or stranger-to-stranger transplants are not uncommon.
''There's about a 10 percent chance to get an identical match'' outside your family, says Dr. Linda Chen, assistant professor of surgery at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine and director of the live kidney donor program.
''When [Jonas] got tested, my insides felt like it was right,'' Pence says. ``It was really a weird feeling.''
Jonas felt it was right, too.
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skempf
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Brave, selfless and devoted are the words that come to mind about this young man. It should make us all ponder what we will be remembered for.
- 1 year ago
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skempf
