Father's day gift gives daughter chance at a new life
Teke Wiggin, Correspondent | Stamford Advocate

STAMFORD -- At first, Dayna Conte had her doubts when her father vowed to beat his belly. He was going to lift weights, go on a special diet, take walks everyday -- she'd heard it all before.

"Since I was little, he's been telling me he's always been on some kind of diet," the 22-year old said with a chuckle.

But to the delight of friends and relatives, Richard Conte, a lifelong Stamford resident, pulled through, shedding 67 pounds in eight months. Nobody was happier about it than Dayna.

That's because her father's weight-loss objective, unlike most, didn't stem from a desire to test his willpower or enhance his appearance: It was a bid to liberate her from a rare, debilitating blood disease.

By losing the weight, Richard, 55, made himself an eligible kidney donor. Turning Father's Day roles on their head, he gave the organ to Dayna on Thursday, largely freeing his daughter from the handicapping effects of an illness which has hampered her life since she was diagnosed with it at age 15.

Shooting pains in Dayna's legs, a case of bronchitis and skin rashes led specialists to determine she was suffering from IgA Nephropathy, a disorder which causes kidneys to leak blood and proteins, when she was a freshman in high school.

The disease forced Dayna to miss 180 days of school over the next three years, and finally worsened to a point where dialysis treatment, and with it, homeschooling, became necessary.

At 5 a.m. three mornings a week, Dayna has traveled to a hospital to connect to a blood-filtering machine through an access point in her arm.

"I'm kind of beat afterwards," she said.

Her father has a special appreciation for the toll dialysis can take on patients. A nurse at Norwalk Hospital with a degree from Norwalk Community College, he wheels patients to and from treatments on shifts. "They don't even get up from their beds," he said.

So he credits his daughter with staying as active as she has.

"She didn't put her head in the sand," he said.

While IgA prevented her from enjoying the scholarship offered to her by Hofstra University, she still takes classes online and at the community college near her Franklin, Mass., home.

She dreams of attending Fairfield University to earn the rest of the credits she needs for a history degree, but her illness has kept that aspiration out of reach -- until now.

About a year ago Richard expressed interest in donating his kidney to his daughter, who had been on dialysis for two years after a kidney her mother donated to her began to fail just a year after the transplant. Doctors said the operation was possible, but informed him that, due to a family history of diabetes, he would have to lose significant weight to reduce the risk of the disease developing in his daughter after the transplant.

With a father's grit, Richard set himself to the task. Consulting some nursing buddies at Norwalk Hospital, he worked out a diet, periodically tweaking it with them to maximize its impact. He stuck to a weight-lifting regimen and boxed too. And without fail, he went on daily four-to-six-mile walks at Cove Island Park - rain, shine or snow.

The thought of lifting his daughter out of the doldrums she had to endure spurred him forward, he said, -- even in the worst of conditions. He recalled trudging through the deep snowdrifts of last January's storms.

"When it's for your kid, you'll do just about anything," he said. "The days when you don't want to go, when it's 10 inches of snow on the ground, I walked through all of that." And, sure enough, his perseverance paid off. To the immense pleasure of both his daughter and the medical professionals who set the weight mark, Richard weighed in 67 pounds lighter at the end of January.

The two underwent the five-hour operation on Thursday at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and, according to Richard, everything went about as well as it could have. After the transplant Dayna's creatinine level, which is used as a measure of kidney functioning, dropped more steeply than usual, a very good thing, Richard said.

Dayna will most likely be able to put her life plans into high gear.

"I thought like I was in a bit of a limbo. I felt like I couldn't go forward," she said, noting if it weren't for her father she would have to wait three to five years for a cadaver kidney, which doesn't last as long as a live one.

Having received such a life-changing gift from her dad, Dayna really has her work cut out for her on Father's Day.

"I don't know what could possibly be good enough considering the circumstances," she said.