Forty years ago, on May 1, 1985, I donated my kidney to my sister, Cindy.
My sister, who was just 13 months older than me, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of 9. Since there was no history of diabetes in our family, my father, a physician, thought that a severe case of the mumps was the likely cause.
My sister went into kidney failure in 1984, at the age of 30. By 1985, it was clear that she needed a new kidney. Her doctors thought it best for her to get a kidney transplant before she had to go on dialysis so that she would be in better physical shape. Since I am her only sibling and my parents were ruled out as donors due to health issues (in 1985, I do not believe they considered non-related donors) her only hope was me. The doctors made it clear to me that I would not be saving her life, but I would be prolonging it. They explained that once my kidney was in her body, the diabetes would start attacking it. Transplanted kidneys for type 1 diabetics last between 10-12 years. At that point, the patient would need another kidney.
Let me be honest—I didn’t really want to donate. One reason was that I was busy with two daughters, ages 5 and 2, and I worked part-time. My husband worked full-time, and I had no family in town who could help out. And I have to admit, I was also a little frustrated by her behavior and angry at her. When she went to college, she partied a lot. After college, we were roommates for a year while I was in graduate school and she worked at a local bar. Twic,e I had to take her to the hospital for diabetic ketoacidosis, a serious and life-threatening complication of diabetes. It is due to a lack of enough insulin, which in her case was caused by her drinking too much alcohol and not following her diet. When I went back to our apartment to get her clothes etc., for her hospital stay, I found a lot of sugary junk food hidden in her closet. I remember thinking that she had not taken care of herself, and now, I was expected to “bail her out”.
Let me explain how the matching process went back in 1985. I lived in Bloomington, Indiana, and my sister lived in Indianapolis. All testing had to take place in Indy, which was about an hour and a half drive away. I went there three different times for various blood tests, and once for a renal arteriogram. (I woke up during the arteriogram, and I remember pushing the doctor’s hands away while he yelled at the anesthesiologist to put me back under! I had to spend the night in the hospital due to arterial bleeding). I mention this because with two preschoolers (who were not in day care full time) and my part-time job, arranging to be gone for most of a day or overnight was not easy. Thank goodness for friends who watched my kids while my husband was at work!
The doctors had explained to me that they would give all of the test results to me first. They explained that a lot of families put pressure on the potential donor to donate so that if I decided not to donate, I was to let them know, and they would simply tell the recipient that we were not a match. I was still on the fence about donating, and I was hoping that we would not be a match so that the decision would be taken out of my hands. Imagine my surprise when my sister called me up to give me the news:
We were a perfect match.
After the miscommunication, I felt that I no longer had a choice: I was donating. At that point, in the fall of 1984, I just wanted to get the surgery over with as soon as possible. After almost six months of delays for various reasons, the third scheduled date, May 1, was the charm.
In 1985, the normal kidney donation surgery involved removing the lower rib and making a large incision on the side from front to back. But the doctors believed they would not have to remove my rib since I was a swimmer with low body fat. They told me that a few months before, they had a patient who was a college wrestler who was donating to his brother, and they successfully removed his kidney without having to remove his rib. They were going to try to do the same for me. In the recovery room, the first thing I did was reach over to my rib cage, trying to determine if they had taken out my rib. They had not, which was a relief. Instead, I have a ten-inch sloping scar, from just under my left rib to the top of my right hip. In the past forty years, no doctor (that I have seen for other reasons) has ever correctly guessed that my scar was from a kidney donation.
Recovery was painful and slow, and it was three months before I returned to work and regular activities. The plan was that I would be in the hospital for 5-7 days, and my sister would be there for about 10-14 days. Our mother had driven up from North Carolina to help. She planned to stay at my house first, and then, when my sister was released from the hospital, she would go to her house. I was released in 7 days, and my sister was doing so well that she was released the day after me. Since she was single at the time, my mother felt she had no choice but to go to my sister’s. My husband took some days off from work to help with my recovery. But a complicating factor was that his mother was in hospice care, dying from cancer, and she lived four hours away. He was torn, but felt he needed to be with his mother, and I encouraged him to go. So he took our five-year-old with him, and I stayed home with our two-year-old. The doctors had told me not to lift anything over twenty pounds. Well, that was impossible with a two-year-old who refused to go upstairs to bed, was still being potty trained, had to be lifted into her car seat…all of which greatly prolonged my recovery. But I can say, the issues were mostly caused by the large abdominal incision, not by losing a kidney. I have never noticed a difference of any kind due to the fact that I only have one kidney.
Now to the athlete part: after flunking beginner swim lessons at age 6, I joined a local neighborhood swim team at age 8 because all my friends did. I swam with that team in the summers and on a YMCA team in the winters until the age of 15. My high school did not have a swim team due to the fact that Title 9, which was passed in the summer of 1972 (before my senior year in high school) had not yet been implemented. Since I didn’t swim in high school, it never occurred to me to swim in college. I went to Indiana University (IU) where men’s swimming was world dominant (remember Mark Spitz?), but women’s swimming was still a club sport!
In 1977, at the age of 22, I started graduate school at IU, and since I had an assistantship, I was considered staff. That allowed me to swim at the staff and faculty swim at the university’s pool. A United States Masters Swimming (USMS) group worked out at that time and invited me to join them. I unofficially did workouts with them until I joined USMS at age 25 and competed in my first Master’s swim meet at 27. I have been swimming with this group — IU DOC, named after famed swim coach Doc Councilman — year-round ever since, and recently competed in a swim meet in February 2025 in the 70-74 age group. I intend to keep competing for as long as I am able!
Over the years, I have swum an average of five times per week, swimming about 2,000 meters each time. I compete in a few meets most years. Only travel, medical issues and/or life events have interrupted my swimming, sometimes for a few weeks or months. But I always go back to the pool as soon as possible. Swimming has been a constant in my life.
My sister spent her years after the transplant well. She got married, worked as a bookkeeper for her friend’s restaurant, was a good “dog mom” and a fantastic aunt to my two daughters. We grew closer after the transplant and spent more time together. She had a great sense of humor and would often jokingly ask me, “how’s that pancreas of yours doing?” I’d respond that she needed to get her next spare part elsewhere!
Cindy died on November 4, 1997—12 1/2 years after the donation, as the doctors had predicted. The cause was complications of diabetes and end-stage renal disease.
My remaining kidney is doing fine. I have yearly blood tests for BUN and creatinine levels, and they have always been in the normal range. After 40 years, I have not had any adverse effects from living with one kidney.
Back in 1985 when I was deciding whether to donate or not, I had a nagging fear that, at some point in the distant future, some doctor would say to me: “Well, back in 1985, they didn’t know that donating a kidney could result in (insert a terrible side effect of your choice).” But I am pleased to report that, as of age 70, I have yet to hear those words.
