Continued: Son's gift of kidney to mother brings them even closer

Joan Eidsvold fell in love with the brown-eyed baby the minute she saw him. The 6-week-old boy, dressed in shorts and an aqua-striped shirt, was snuggled in a social worker's arms. When he saw his new parents, he spit out his pacifier.

Joan and her husband, Tom, took him home, named him Brian and made him their son.

Nearly 40 years later, he got a chance to pay her back.

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It was a routine exam, like Joan had every year. But that day seven years ago, the results were not routine. Blood tests showed some abnormalities; her kidneys were starting to fail.

Joan, nearing 60 years old, was shocked: I've got something really wrong, she knew.

A specialist told her that her kidney problems were progressing slowly, but that eventually she would likely need a transplant. She went back to the Alexandria, Minn., clinic regularly so that the doctors could monitor the decline.

After several years, her kidneys were functioning at only 20 percent of their capacity. Doctors told her that she qualified for the national list of people waiting for kidneys. Working her way up the list could take years, though, and they suggested she might want to start looking for a live donor.

Joan was overwhelmed. How would she do that? Where would she begin?

You can't just ask someone for a kidney, she and Tom reasoned. The best they could do was let people know she needed one and see what happened.

Joan's seven brothers and sisters stepped up first. Some knew immediately they couldn't donate. Others went through initial tests and found out they weren't matches. One by one, Joan's hopes faded. She worried that she was running out of options.

Brian, now 39 and living just a stone's throw from his parents in Alexandria, didn't give donating much thought. He had always known he was adopted, and he believed that blood relatives were the best potential matches.

At her next doctor's appointment, Joan broke down sobbing. I've got no donor, she said. Dialysis loomed, but it was arduous and time-consuming and she feared it would make her life miserable.

Finding a basic blood match wouldn't be difficult for Joan -- 40 percent of the U.S. population matches her Type A blood, while some others can also donate to her.

But a blood match alone is not enough. There's always danger of a kidney recipient's antibodies fighting off the donor kidney.

On top of that, a donor has to be healthy and free of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, lung disease, hepatitis and a host of other conditions. And then, of course, they have to be willing to undergo a four-hour operation and give up a kidney.

Joan got more pamphlets about dialysis and started facing her probable future: Hours hooked to a machine. Fatigue. A restricted diet.

A first hope

As always, Joan barely let on to her family that she was worried.

Brian was busy as an executive in the family's wholesale foods business and raising two grade-school age boys with his wife, Drea. He figured something would work out for his mother; he didn't think there was anything he could do.

But his wife wondered whether she could help. One afternoon she called the University of Minnesota Medical Center-Fairview and requested a kit to test her blood.

Brian happened to pass through the living room, and he overheard her.

You might as well have them send me one, too, he said. He figured it would be a long shot. But if his wife was willing to try, so was he.

Drea didn't pass the initial telephone screening. But Brian got test tubes and paperwork in the mail and went to an area clinic to have his blood drawn.

Initial results were promising: Like Joan, he had Type A blood.

His clinic sent vials of Brian's blood to Minneapolis, where technicians mixed it with Joan's. They watched to see if there was a reaction. If Joan's blood fought off Brian's, that meant her body would also fight off his kidney.

Under the microscope, nothing moved. Compatible.

After one more test, doctors invited Brian to Minneapolis for a battery of examinations to make sure he was healthy enough to donate.

That invitation gave his parents their first real hope.

They were excited but leery: "We were told that a person could give a kidney and that it wasn't a problem," Tom said. "Then, once all of a sudden it came to our own son, we started ... wondering."

Brian was quietly leery, too. He wanted to help his mother, but he had a busy job and a family of his own. He and his boys liked to play ball and ski.

Would donating a kidney change all that?

Let's get it done

About half of all donors who make it to the university for further tests -- like Brian -- are rejected.

Unknown health conditions may knock them out of consideration. Psychological tests could, too. Doctors want to make sure a donor is mentally ready for the procedure.

They told Brian of the risks: Three in 10,000 donors die from the surgery. As with any operation, there's always a chance of infection and bleeding.

They gave him every option to back out. If he didn't want to say no himself, they would do it for him, simply dubbing him "not suitable."

But the tests looked fine. If all went well, they told him, he should recover fully and not notice a difference in his life.

That was all Brian needed to hear.

Now he could help repay his mother. Now he could go through the transplant right alongside her.

Let's get it done, he told his family.

In January, hospital staff wheeled them into adjoining operating rooms at the University of Minnesota, mother and son side by side.

A stronger bond

The surgeons left Joan's failing kidneys in place, and found room for Brian's kidney. When they connected the arteries and veins, it turned a healthy pink and immediately began to work.

The son's fist-sized kidney now protrudes slightly from his mother's abdomen, a small lump on her right side.

They both feel that the transplant has brought them closer.

"It was something that finally I felt like I could give back to Mom," Brian said.

They look at each other differently now. They talk more. Their hugs are a little tighter. It's easier to say, "I love you."

Joan says she believes God brought them together that late summer day nearly 40 years ago. "There has to be a hand in there from someone higher than us," she said.

Most of all, she's proud of her son "for what he's done, and just proud of him for what he turned out to be," she said. "He turned out to be a wonderful son."

Pam Louwagie • 612-673-7102