After losing our first child to Autosomal Recessive Polycystic Kidney Disease
(ARPKD), our family was devastated to find out that our son Bennett,
who was born nine weeks premature, had the same rare genetic condition.
Our lives changed forever when we received the
call that a kidney was available. When you are on
the transplant waiting list, you never think that the
call will come because you know how rare the
availability of pediatric organs is.
The donor was a 17-year-old-female from
Nashville, Tennessee. Our son had his transplant
the next day.
Words cannot express how I felt knowing that my
son was going to have a transplant or how thankful
we have been to the donor and her family. I am
amazed at how selfless a family can be in a time
of such tragedy.
My wife and I now have a sense of normalcy with
life and our marriage, and our son now has a
second chance at a relatively normal life.
Dean M. Huibregtse
Director of Global Sales, Medrad
Bennett was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
(NICU) at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of
UPMC for the first 12 weeks of his life. At the age
of six weeks, doctors removed both of his kidneys
and then placed him on peritoneal dialysis.
The first year on peritoneal dialysis went well;
however, he developed multiple infections
and was placed on hemodialysis. This was
heartbreaking for my wife and me, as she and
my son had to spend five hours a day, three
days a week at the hospital for his dialysis.
My wife and I wanted desperately to save our
son’s life, so we went through testing to see if
beyond blood type either of us was a match for
kidney donation. Unfortunately, the test results
showed that my wife had a different blood type,
and I had blood antigens that would cause
immediate rejection, so we were both unable
to be a match.
Bennett went on the kidney transplant waiting
list at two years of age.
Medrad is a
Partner for Life.
