My 80-year Old Solo Home HD Dad Got a Transplant!

Well. It's finally happened.

When my dad came out of the hospital 2 years ago with kidney failure, we figured that was it. The stats are not great for people starting on dialysis in their late 70s; generally, just a couple of years, slow demise, fatigue, and death. You get the picture...not a lot of Mr. Brightside there.

I imagine that most of us think/hope that our loved one will beat the odds, be the one who thrives and goes on to get better, but the stats don't lie. That is an uncommon outcome for someone chasing their 80th trip around the sun.

When my dad wanted to dialyze at home, his nurses and nephrologist said no, but I said yes. Not because I thought he was ready, but because he wanted to. And for 14 months, he did an awesome job with home hemodialysis. Self-cannulating four sessions a week, alone, and not a single unscheduled hospital return.

When he got turned down from even being on the transplant list at one hospital network, he sought out another one with the help of his nephrologist and was initially accepted. A full year passed, and we figured his chances were getting pretty slim. At his follow-up consultation, one of the transplant nephrologists came into the room where he was meeting with the various support staff and said, "I heard you were in, and I wanted to see the 80-year-old person on our transplant list for myself."

The old man beamed with pride! He'd been working hard to stay relevant on that list; walking 5 miles a day in laps around his neighborhood, keeping a good diet, and, as noted, killing it with his home dialysis. They told him that a lot of factors are still against him: age and blood type topmost among them. But the best thing he can do is maintain readiness.

Imagine my shock when, while I was chatting with a coworker and a couple of our board members from the ALS Association, I answered my phone and heard him say...

"Dean-o...I got the call."

Instead of a board meeting and visit to the Hill (which would have been my first!) I'm back on a plane and in the hospital in Atlanta by 11:00 the next day. And now I'm working in my dad's garage (where it's freezing), and he's inside with his new kidney.

He'll tell you that the app I built to guide him through dialysis literally kept him on track and on point. I'll tell you, maybe it did, although he was certainly extra motivated to use it because I made it. But regardless...he got the job done!

My app and the carepartner companion that goes with it will be up on the app store soon, free to use if people want it. I had 'visions of sugarplums' dancing in my head at one point about just how awesome and successful it would be...but alas.

It helped the one person I really needed it to help. That's enough.