Organ Donation Awareness Month: Rebirth of old technique gives kidney transplant patients new lease on life

DC Military | Sharon Renee Taylor

It was midnight when retired Navy Petty Officer Second Class Joyce Brillantes received the call in Chula Vista, Calif., that a kidney was waiting for her at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WRNMMC) in Bethesda, Md. She had spent more than a year on the transplant list and administered peritoneal dialysis infusions to herself at home four times a day to clean her blood like her kidneys should.

Brillantes scrambled to make flight arrangements. Airline delays caused the 30-year-old to miss a connecting flight by 18 minutes and forced her to wait seven hours in a Salt Lake City, Utah airport.

“It was nerve-wracking,” Brillantes said.

A phone call to Army Sgt. Candice Westbrook in the transplant services department at the medical center assured her it would be okay. The team that would perform the life-saving surgery was waiting for her in Bethesda, and her kidney was waiting, too on a kidney perfusion machine, a first for WRNMMC.
Read more:  http://www.dcmilitary.com/article/20120412/NEWS11/704129989/organ-donation-awareness-month-rebirth-of-old-technique-gives-kidney