FRIDAY, March 21, 2003 (HealthDayNews) -- Back when he was 23, Rich Salick was living a life most guys his age would envy.
Rich and his twin brother, Phil, surfed in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the
Bahamas, St. Thomas and other hot spots.
Both were good surfers. Rich was a professional, a card-carrying member of the U.S. and World Surfing Teams, a hot commodity to surfboard companies with
products to sell. Come summer, the two Florida college students would
dump the books and hit the road.
Life was good, Rich, now 53, recalled recently. "I had a little
money in the bank, and had just gotten married," he says. Then one
night, driving along the road, he got sick. Really sick. The vomiting
wouldn't stop.
Finally, his wife persuaded him to go to the hospital. After tests,
more tests, exams and consults, the doctors delivered the verdict: he
had IgA nephropathy/glomerulonephritis. The condition, estimated to be the fourth most common reason for end-stage renal failure, meant the filtering system in his kidneys was severely damaged. His kidney failure was so severe he needed a transplant to survive.
Today in the United States, more than 50,000 patients are waiting for
kidney transplants, but only about 14,000 will receive one because of
the shortage of suitable organ donors, according to the National Kidney
Foundation. The operations cost between $50,000 and $80,000 each.
Rich was lucky. Phil volunteered to be his donor.
Less than a year after the 1974 procedure, Rich was back in the
waves, protecting his new kidney with a specially designed pad he had
created himself -- and winning first place in the second competition he
entered.
Soon, he and Phil, along with their other two brothers, were organizing benefit surfing competitions in Cocoa Beach, Fla., near Rich's home, and taking the profits to dialysis units for patients in need.
In the 30 years since Rich first got a transplant, the procedure itself, which requires about three hours to perform and is done under general anesthesia, has changed very little, says Dr. Richard Freeman, a transplant surgeon and associate professor of surgery at Tufts-New England Medical Center.
However, there have been plenty of other advances, Freeman says. "Over
the last five years, it has become very clear that people are likely to
live longer with a transplant than with dialysis," he says.
What's also clear, he adds, is that a living donor is better than a
cadaver, partly because the waiting period is shorter.
"We've become much more progressive about using living donors," he
says. One example is a so-called swap program at his hospital.
"You need a kidney and your brother can't be your donor [because he
is not a match]. At another hospital, there is the same situation. But
the donor at the other hospital is compatible with you. So you do a
swap," he explains.
In Rich Salick's case, his twin was a match, which is why his first
transplant went without a hitch.
However, in his story, there were two more.
Rich's disease has reoccurred twice and he had two more transplants, in
1986 and 1999.
Dr. Brian J.G. Pereira, president of the kidney foundation, says that a person having three kidney transplants is not common at all. "This is about as far as one goes as far as number of transplants," he adds.
Again, however, Rich was lucky. For each of the two transplants, his brothers
Channing and Wilson volunteered to be the donors.
Rich's day job, for several years now, has been with the National
Kidney Foundation of Florida, where he is the director of community relations. He estimates he's raised about $4 million for the foundation.
And he surfs when he can. But there has been more bad news. Rich is now
battling a rare brain cancer.
Pereira says Rich's cancer, and cancers in general, are thought to be associated with the long-term use of the immunosuppressant drugs that are routinely prescribed to transplant patients.
However, Rich's attitude remains remarkably upbeat. He thinks often of
the gift of life from his three brothers.
"I can never repay what my brothers have given me," says Rich, the
father of two grown sons. "I say thank you every time I look at my
sons."
More information
For more information on transplants, go to United Network for Organ Sharing. To take
a kidney quiz, go to National
Kidney Foundation.
