When Dr. Eric Siskind performed six transplant operations over three days just before Christmas, it was an opportunity he may never have again.
“That’s very unusual,” he told The Dallas Express. “When we have this kind of surgery, two have to happen at one time. Two operating rooms are reserved. We have to have two or three surgeons ready to go at the same time and the operating room staff. It’s something that takes a lot of planning.”
Between December 20 and 22, Louise Bailey, 66, Ava Nickerson, 69, and Mike Trevino, 54 — all educators in North Texas — donated kidneys at Texas Health Fort Worth.
“The process for the recipients may start years beforehand,” Siskind explained. “Often, they may have been sick for five to 10 years and slowly progress to where their kidneys are at the point of failure.”
Bailey, a retired teacher who works as an art assistant at J.C. Thompson Elementary School in Fort Worth, donated her kidney on December 20 to her former college roommate, Kathy Knowles. The next day, Nickerson, a science teacher at a high school in Valley View, north of Denton, donated her kidney to an unidentified recipient.
And Trevino’s donation on December 22 was to Mason Williams, 28, a former co-worker at Polytechnic High School in Fort Worth.
“Sometimes, this process for recipients starts 20 years earlier,” Siskind told DX. “Once their kidneys are getting to the point where they may have to start dialysis or get a transplant, they’ll come to our transplant clinic.”
That’s where they’ll meet numerous surgeons, specialists, counselors, financial coordinators, and others who evaluate them.
“There’s a lot of different testing that’s done — the heart, cancer screenings, infectious disease screenings,” Siskind said. “Many tests are done to prep for this surgery. Once they are listed for a transplant, a living donor can be [prepared for surgery] right away. Sometimes, the recipient has to wait for a deceased donor. It could take months to years.”
According to the American Kidney Fund, 37 million Americans have kidney disease, and more than 800,000 are living with kidney failure. More than 562,000 are on dialysis, and over 245,000 live with kidney transplants. Siskind said all three of the kidney recipients were on dialysis.
Obesity — an escalating epidemic in the U.S. — has been linked to many chronic illnesses and is also a significant risk factor for developing kidney disease.
“For the donor, they’re in the hospital for three or four days,” Siskind said. “We see them in the clinic one or two weeks later. Usually, there’s not much change in daily activities. For the recipients, we follow them very closely because of all the new medications and changes they’re having for the first year.”
That includes anti-rejection medication.
“About 5 to 10% of the time, the body rejects the organ,” Siskind said. “To be honest, the anti-rejection medications we give people nowadays are very, very good. We don’t see rejection as much as we used to. The most common reason people have rejection is that they don’t take their medicine. We spend a lot of time telling people about the importance of taking their medicine.”
Diabetes is the top cause of kidney failure in the U.S., according to the American Kidney Fund. The second most common cause is high blood pressure. In 2020, about 130,000 Americans were diagnosed with kidney failure. About 90,000 were on the kidney transplant list but only 26,309 received new kidneys in 2022.
“The shortage of available donor kidneys means that the vast majority of people who develop kidney failure are treated with dialysis. Of the 130,000 Americans newly diagnosed with kidney failure in 2020 (most recent data), nearly 97% of them began dialysis. Only 3,979 were able to receive a preemptive kidney transplant,” according to the website of the American Kidney Fund.
Receiving dialysis is necessary to sustain life. But the longer a patient is on dialysis, the higher the risk of heart attack and stroke.
“The body doesn’t cope,” Siskind said. “It slowly damages the body. Dialysis keeps someone alive, but the process of dialysis also damages the body. The longer someone is on dialysis, every year the risk of having a heart attack or stroke goes up by about 10%. Dialysis is miraculous because it saves the body from dying but increases risk.”
Dialysis is the process by which extra fluid and waste products are removed from the blood when the kidneys are diseased or in failure. For patients with end-stage kidney disease, dialysis is needed until they receive new kidneys, and those on dialysis are often required to change their diets, exercise regimens, and other activities to extend their lives.
“We celebrate all our donors,” Siskind told The Dallas Express. “They are all heroic. It’s an amazing thing that they all donated at the same time. They were all in the hospital together, sharing their stories. It was a beautiful thing to see.”
Siskind is board-certified in general surgery and certified in kidney, pancreas, and liver transplantation from the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, having performed hundreds of such surgeries over his career.