The gift of life

Williams Township man and his brother-in-law both benefit from kidney donation

By Irene Kraft, OF THE MORNING CALL

During this season of giving, Lou Cozze is particularly grateful for what may be the greatest gift he has ever received.

On Oct. 8, Cozze of Williams Township received a kidney from his brother-in-law, Tim Linzer of Annandale, N.J.

Cozze and Linzer have known each other for 18 years. Their wives, Bonnie Cozze and Terri Linzer, are sisters.

During one of many trips to Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia, where the kidney transplant took place, Bonnie remembers telling her sister, "It's a miracle that the guy you married is going to be able to save the guy I married."

"I felt it was the right thing to do," says Linzer, who felt he had to help. It would have taken several years for Cozze to move up on the list for a cadaver kidney.

Cozze is 51. "Most of me is 51 and part of me is 43," he says, revealing the humor that has served him well since learning in October 2008 that he was in end-stage renal failure. (The younger part of him, of course, is the kidney from 43-year-old Linzer.)

Cozze never realized how sick he was. He did notice he was running out of energy quicker than usual. But, he says, "I was approaching 50, so I didn't think much of it."

Then he was hit with nausea and vomiting, from what he thought was a stomach virus. When it didn't ease up, his wife convinced him to see a doctor, who did blood work, suspecting something more serious.

At 4:30 the next morning, Cozze got a call telling him to immediately go to the emergency room.

"I thought it was my heart," he recalls. Instead, he was told they thought his kidneys were failing. He spent eight days in Hunterdon Medical Center in Flemington, N.J., undergoing "every test I think they could throw at you."

When it was confirmed he was in kidney failure and he heard the word "transplant," he was shocked. His chest tightened. He thought he was having a heart attack. Instead, it was anxiety.

His kidneys, he learned, were functioning at only 8 percent. "My nephrologist said I should not have been standing yet alone going to work every day." He is co-owner of Cozze Brothers Used Auto Parts in Clinton, N.J.

Cozze had hypertension, most likely for a long time, but never knew it. Also known as high blood pressure, it's a major cause of kidney failure, damaging blood vessels throughout the body, including those in the kidneys that remove wastes and extra fluid from the body.

"It doesn't run in my family. I couldn't feel it. And I never missed a day of work," he says.