It was not the news Jennifer Baer wanted to hear. She had gone through the testing, she was ready, but she wasn’t a match for her aunt.
“It was so disappointing,” Jennifer said.
She was planning on donating one of her kidneys to her aunt. After the test, she was told she wasn’t a good enough match. It was heartbreaking, but she was then asked if she would be interested in becoming a “Good Samaritan” donor.
There are two kinds of living donors, according to Gina Rau, the transplant coordinator at Nebraska Medicine in Omaha. There is a direct donor who gives an organ to one specific person they know. The second is called a “Good Samaritan” donor who gives to someone they do not know.
“It looked like we (Jennifer and her aunt) were going to be a good match,” Jennifer said.
When it didn’t happen she agreed to go through with a donation anyway, even if it was for someone she did not know.
Helping others is nothing new to Jennifer who works as a nurse practitioner for Regional West Physicians Clinic Family Medicine in Gering.
Growing up
“I always wanted to take care of people,” even as a kid growing up in Bayard, Nebraska,” Jennifer said.
After graduating high school she headed to Chadron State a College in the RHOP program for nursing. However, she switched to social work before graduating.
After a few years, she was not happy with her career choice.
“I asked myself ‘why did I leave nursing?’ I loved it,” she said and came back to nursing, attending University of Nebraska Medical Center nursing program.
Helping others
She became a licensed practical nurse (LPN), then a registered nurse (RN).
Working at the Gering Clinic, she was encouraged by Dr. Matthew Haslam to keep going with her education, so she did. She received her Master’s degree and became a nurse practitioner.
Growing up she always thought she would be a nurse, but she never thought “I’m going to grow up to be a living organ donor.”
The call finally came, a match had been found. They had also found a match for her aunt. They wanted to do a chain transplant.
A donor would give their kidney to her aunt, Jennifer would give hers to someone else, and it would be completely anonymous.
“OK. Let me know when I need to be there,” Gina remembers Jennifer saying. Jennifer was all in.
Historic transplants
At the time, Jennifer had no idea she was taking part in something historic.
The planning started in November, Gina said. Surgeons, nurses, access services, pre-op, supplies, rooms, and much more had to be worked out.
“It takes an army,” Gina said.
Meeting weekly, the army worked out all the details.
Nebraska Medicine conducts about 150 transplants a year, Gina said. Of those about 52 are from living donors.
Transplants from living donors tend to last longer, have fewer complications and work better because they come from a healthy donor.
If someone signs up to be a living donor (go online to www.nebraskamed.com\kidneydonor), the team contacts them in two to three days. Basic blood work is done. In western Nebraska, it can be done at Regional West Medical Center. If the person is a match, more tests are conducted at Nebraska Medicine, along with education about the living donor process. If the person is found to be a good fit to be a living donor, they are put on the list.
Jennifer was on the list for a couple of years.
Now her surgery was planned for the week of Feb. 27, 2017.
The army was ready.
The surgeries
Unknown to Jennifer she was about to take part in the largest “chain transplant” in Nebraska Medicine history.
The first two transplant surgeries took place on Feb. 27. The last two took place on March 3.
“Everything went as smoothly as possible,” Gina said. “It was awesome.”
It began with a donor who wanted to give a kidney in honor of a friend. Her kidney went to someone’s loved one who, like Jennifer’s aunt, didn’t match with their donor. And like Jennifer they were willing to become a Good Samaritan donor.
Thus beginning the chain.
The results
It wasn’t until several months after the surgery that the donors met the recipients of their kidneys at an event hosted by Nebraska Medicine.
“They asked the donors to come forward and stand behind a line and the recipients to line up behind another line,” Jennifer said.
There were nine men and women, young and old standing behind each line, 18 in all.
“None of us knew that many people were involved,” she said. “It was amazing.”
The chain began with a wife, mother and grandmother (Sue Venteicher) who donated her kidney in memory of a friend (Michael Peters). It ended with a donor giving their kidney to a 5-year-old boy they never knew.
“It isn’t our team (at Nebraska Medicine) who made this happen, it is the living donors,” Gina said.
The donors came from all across Nebraska from Omaha to Scottsbluff. The only one outside of Nebraska was a member of the Air Force stationed in Oklahoma.
“It was absolutely amazing,” Jennifer said.
Jennifer had shared a few letters with the lady who got her kidney but it was at the ceremony when the two met face-to-face.
Donor and recipient
Before the ceremony people asked Amy Dorton, “Don’t you want to know what kind of person gave you their kidney?”
“I would tell them, ‘I knew they had to be an amazing person.’ You would have to be to give one of your kidneys to a stranger.”
When Amy met Jennifer, “She is an amazing person,” Amy said.
Amy works as a medical social worker in eastern Nebraska where a former co-worker of Jennifer’s also works.
“When I found out she (the co-worker) had lived in Scottsbluff I asked if she knew Jenn,” Amy said. She told Amy they were very close friends and asked how she knew Jennifer.
“I have her kidney in me,” Amy answered. “It’s a small world.”
Amy and Jennifer have stayed in contact.
On Feb. 28, Amy sent Jennifer flowers on the anniversary of the surgery.
“I text her once in a while jokingly telling her, ‘My kidney needs a little glass of wine or a Diet Coke,’” Jennifer said.
Amy is doing great with Jennifer’s kidney.
“There is not a day that goes by I don’t think about Jenn,” Amy said.
Because of Jennifer’s selfless gift, Amy now lives life to its fullest. Before the transplant, she struggled to make it through each day.
The transplant changed Amy’s life and being a part of a chain impacting so many lives was “wild.”
Jennifer and the other donor involved in the chain were recently honored as Heroes in the Heartland at a ceremony hosted by the American Red Cross in Omaha.
Becoming a living donor
“It is a great experience,” Jennifer said of being a living donor. “It didn’t cost me anything. I haven’t had difficulty and it (being a living donor) impacts so many lives.”
More living donors are needed.
Presently, there are over 100,000 people on the transplant list, Gina said. Nationwide there are 1,600 to 1,700 transplants (from living and deceased donors) performed each year.
“It is a selfless act,” she said. “I am honored to be able to work with heroes (living donors) every day.”
Jennifer, however, doesn’t see herself as a hero. Instead she refers to herself as an ordinary person who enjoys helping people.
Brad Staman 