![]() ![]() "She has shown so much love and excitement during the process that it has brought out the best in not only me but in my husband as well. "It's all pretty humbling to be part of the process," Hamme wrote to the Journal Sentinel via email. Five days later, one of Kay's kidneys will be removed, and shipped to Kentucky for a transplant. On March 25, she will receive a new kidney through a donor in California. This month, Hamme's wait for a kidney comes to an end. While Kay's kidney wasn't a direct match for Hamme, they had been approved to participate in a paired kidney exchange program together through the UW Health Transplant Center in Madison. Hamme knew that Kay had been going through the screening process to be a living kidney donor, which would significantly shorten Hamme's own wait for a new kidney. The wait for one could, and often does, take years.īut opening that gift this past December, and seeing that kidney bean, Hamme understood her wait could almost be over. Right before Christmas in 2019, Hamme was diagnosed with stage 4 kidney failure. And after she developed Type 2 diabetes later in her life, the situation became more dire. A series of biopsies throughout her life couldn't conclusively determine why they were producing so much protein. Hamme has had kidney problems since her birth. The two locked eyes, both of them beginning to tear up. She unwrapped the present, and inside found a single kidney bean. "I couldn't feel my legs, I was so nervous," Kay said.Īs fate would have it, Kay drew Hamme's name in the family gift exchange last year, and in a matter of moments, Hamme was about to receive the greatest gift of her life. She's frequently done segments for WISN-TV (Channel 12), and before the pandemic, she regularly spoke in front of hundreds or thousands of people at concerts and other events.īut Kay was extremely anxious sitting in her sister-in-law's kitchen around Christmas, watching her mother-in-law Camille Hamme open her present. Since 2009, she's been talking to thousands of listeners every weekday as morning co-host on WMYX-FM (99.1) in Milwaukee. ![]() Additional information regarding transplantation can be found at The Emory Healthcare web site provides info to help you understand Emory's living donor process.Watch Video: Camille Hamme receives a special present If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact your Emory transplant coordinator at 40 or toll free 1-86. The Emory transplant team will evaluate each potential donor very carefully. Donation is an important decision, which involves potential benefits and risks. Kidney transplantation can improve the length and quality of the recipient's life and strengthen the feeling of closeness between the recipient and the donor. The generous act of donating a kidney can be an incredible and rewarding experience for everyone involved. This option can help those patients waiting for kidney transplants who have family members or friends willing to be donors and who are medically suitable, but who have an ABO blood type that is incompatible with the recipient’s blood type.” In exchange, the second donor-recipient pair will give a compatible kidney to the first donor-recipient pair, making two compatible living donor transplants possible and increasing the potential number of available donor kidneys. “With a paired kidney transplant, one incompatible donor-pair is able to give a healthy kidney to a compatible recipient. “Paired donor exchanges allow us to cast a much wider net to find compatible donors and recipients,” says Newell. While most kidneys from deceased donors function well, studies have shown that a kidney from a living donor, either a blood relative or an unrelated person, provides the greatest chance for long-term success. Donated kidneys also come from recently deceased donors. The procedure is another form of living donor transplantation. In paired donation, a donor and recipient are matched with another incompatible donor and recipient and the kidneys are exchanged between the pairs. According to Kenneth Newell, MD, director of Emory’s living donor program, a paired exchange donation allows healthy individuals to donate a kidney to either a friend, loved one, or even altruistically to a stranger, despite incompatible blood matches. The Emory Transplant Center created and opened its innovative Paired Donor Kidney Exchange Program in 2009, providing greater hope for patients in need of kidney transplants. Transplant recipients, donors and family talk about the miracle of a six-person paired kidney transplant - known colloquially as a "kidney swap." The operation took place in Atlanta and involved Emory Healthcare and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. Best Gift - A Kidney The Best Gift: Six-Person Paired Kidney Transplant
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