KIDNEY
ORGANS – KIDNEY
PATIENT STORY : UAB EMPLOYEE COUPLE JUGGLE PREMATURE BIRTH , ORGAN TRANSPLANT
These events began with preparations for organ donation . Daniel ’ s brother , Josh Tucker , needed a kidney . Josh , 36 , a professor in the English department at Chattanooga State Community College , already had two transplants : the first when he was seven years old and again when he was 18 . Josh says this third transplant was more urgent .
“ We knew that my kidney was on its way out , so to speak ,” Josh says . “ I was on dialysis . My grandfather was the donor for my first transplant when I was a child , since he was a match . But even though Daniel and I have the same blood type , he was not a match for this third transplant . But UAB ’ s Kidney Paired Donation Program was a solution for that .”
The Tucker family
UAB Medicine clinicians take pride in the excellent care they provide for patients and families . In 2020 , employees Kacy and Daniel Tucker got an up-close view of that care – this time from the patient side . An organ transplant surgery and the premature birth of their child at the same time are not what the Tuckers would have planned , but the family now reports good outcomes for both experiences .
Kacy Tucker , CRNP , is a nurse practitioner with UAB Medicine Hematology and Oncology . Daniel Tucker , PA , is a physician assistant with the UAB Comprehensive Transplant Institute ( CTI ) kidney transplant program . As health care professionals , the couple have plenty of insight into the challenges patients face when a medical emergency arises . The Tuckers saw this mainly from the provider side , but they gained a new perspective when certain events coincided in summer 2020 .
Another Option Josh is referring to a special type of living-donor transplantation . Normally , living donation involves a healthy individual donating a kidney to someone in need of a transplant . The living donor may be a relative , spouse , or even a close friend of the recipient . However , as was the case for Daniel and Josh , sometimes tests show that a kidney would not be a match , meaning that certain medical factors regarding tissue type and antibodies will cause the recipient ’ s body to reject the new organ . This is known as donor-recipient incompatibility . In such cases , kidney paired donation ( KPD ), sometimes called kidney exchange or kidney swap , becomes an option that can address the shortage of organs .
Through KPD , living donor kidneys are swapped , so that each recipient receives a compatible transplant . This is an option if a living kidney donor is incompatible with the recipient but happens to be compatible with another person on the waitlist . Two living-donor transplants are performed , involving a first donor and recipient and a second donor and recipient . Donor 1 gives a kidney to recipient 2 , then donor 2 gives a kidney to recipient 1 .
With this arrangement in place , Daniel and Josh would wait for a call informing them that a paired donor match had been found . Although the COVID-19 pandemic created new risks for patients and complications for hospital procedures in 2020 , Daniel was not greatly concerned about outcomes . He works with kidney transplantation at the CTI every day .
22 UAB CTI Report