Stephanie Holladay had never considered organ donation, but a newspaper article and a Google search led the Portland woman to give a life-saving gift to a Vancouver man she had never met.
Holladay was reading articles from her hometown newspaper when she came across one about a woman looking for a living kidney donor. Although the woman lived on the other side of the country, Holladay was moved by the story and underwent testing to be the woman’s kidney donor.
Holladay, 50, was disappointed when she learned she wasn’t a match, but she kept thinking about organ donation.
“About four days later, I couldn’t stop thinking about the need,” she said.
So Holladay typed “Oregon kidney donation” into Google. Below a few entries about hospital donation programs, she found Scott Warren — a Vancouver man with kidney disease and in desperate need of a transplant.
Did you know?
• More than 99,000 people are currently waiting for kidney transplants -- by far the greatest need. Nearly 120,000 people are currently on organ transplant waiting lists. Through August of this year, about 22,100 organ transplants occurred.
• In Oregon and Southwest Washington, more than 670 people are waiting for kidney transplants.
Source: Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, Donate Life Northwest.
The link took Holladay to Warren’s profile page on a kidney donor website and then to his Facebook page, A Kidney for Scott. Warren launched the social media campaign to find a donor in May 2013.
Holladay read up about Warren — diagnosed with kidney failure in May 2012, on dialysis since June 2012, on the transplant list since August 2013 — and knew what she had to do.
Holladay was going to try, again, to give her kidney to a stranger.
She went through round after round of interviews and tests and, in April, Holladay learned she was a match. Warren suspected the woman writing encouraging words on his Facebook page might have been going through the donor-match process, but he didn’t know for sure. And he wasn’t about to get his hopes up.
But then, while he was sitting through a four-hour dialysis session, Warren got the call he had waited years for: There was a match.
“There were tears shed that day,” said Warren, 48. “It was pretty surreal, that’s for sure.”
For Warren, Holladay’s decision came at the perfect time. His health was declining. He lost what residual kidney function he had. And he could barely urinate, meaning he had to restrict his fluid intake even further than his original 32-ounce limit.
“The last six months were the toughest,” Warren said. “By the end of treatment, I was in pretty bad shape.”
“It couldn’t have come at a better time for me,” he added.
The surgery was set for May 9. Holladay’s procedure began at 8:30 a.m. Warren was wheeled into surgery an hour later. Each surgery took three to four hours.
“I remember waking up in recovery and asking, ‘Does Scott have the kidney?,’ ” Holladay said.
The nurses confirmed that the kidney had been transplanted and was creating urine — a key sign that the kidney was functioning in its new body.
“I looked down and I saw the urine bag was full,” Warren said. “I knew we were in real good shape at that point.”
Holladay experienced virtually no pain after the procedure. She could feel tightness in the area of her incision but said it just felt like she had done 100 sit-ups. She was discharged from the hospital the day after the surgery.
Warren spent two days in the intensive care unit, followed by two more days in the hospital. Almost immediately, the feeling of coldness caused by the anemia was gone and the color returned to his cheeks.
“All the things you take for granted as a person with normal kidney function, I had it back as soon as that afternoon,” Warren said. “You can’t tell you’re not normal until you’re normal again.”
That first night in the ICU, Warren ordered a chocolate malt — a treat he couldn’t enjoy in the years prior. And the next morning, he asked for bacon and sausage with his eggs, indulging again on foods that had for years been off-limits.
Within days of being discharged, Warren started daily walks around his neighborhood. Initially, he was only able to walk a block or two. But, over the following weeks, he built up to daily walks of 1 1/2 to 2 miles. About six weeks after surgery, Warren was back outside mowing his lawn and pulling weeds.
“It makes you feel like an all-around person again and not just waiting for the next dialysis appointment,” he said.
Warren will take anti-rejection medication for the rest of his life. But other than ensuring he stays hydrated, Warren doesn’t have any of the diet, exercise or lifestyle restrictions he had to follow for four years.
Both Warren and Holladay have follow-up medical appointments — Warren more than Holladay — but both have healed from the procedures and are doing well.
“I wake up in the morning, and I wouldn’t know I only have one kidney,” Holladay said.
Now, Warren has made it his mission to use the Facebook page that helped him find his kidney donor to help others in need. He shares the stories of people across the country looking for donors and urges people to consider living donation.
“Living kidney donation is possible, and the need is out there,” he said. “The number of deceased donors will never meet the need.”
Warren knows firsthand how a living kidney donor can change a person’s life.
“I’ve been just awesome,” Warren said. “I’ve got a lot more energy. It’s like night and day.”
“I got through it,” he added, “and now, I have a whole new life.”
