He Gave the Greatest Gift
by Eve Hightower, Appeal Democrat reporter
published April 13, 2006
This is the sort of story Dr. Venu Kondle hoped to nurture when he began medicine.
“It's about humanity and community,” he said. “It is one citizen helping another, we just propelled it.”
This is the story of how Bob Morgan saved Carolyn Winn's life because he could.
There are 300,000 patients on dialysis nationally, and 90 percent are awaiting kidney transplants, Kondle said. About 200 people in the Marysville-Yuba City area are hoping for new kidneys.
“We don't have that many kidneys, and the need is increasing all the time,” he said.
Winn, 41, of Yuba City, was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease in 1993. She was just beginning her career in Chicago, hadn't yet met her husband and the concept of motherhood was distant.
She may have had the disease 15 years before it was discovered during a routine exam she had to take to get insurance for her dental practice.
She has focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, a mouthful of medical terminology that conveyed how she would likely die. Without a transplant, her kidneys would gradually shut down until they could no longer keep her blood clean and chemically balanced.
“But I never looked at it like a death sentence,” she said. “People ask, ‘How can you can go on with this problem?' I say, ‘I don't make it a problem.'”
The disease's abbreviation - FSGS - does not include the first word “idiopathic,” which means there is no known reason for Winn's condition. It is not genetic and would not be staved off by her healthy diet and regular exercise.
“There's no reason for her to have this disease,” her doctor, Kondle, said. “She couldn't have done anything different.”
Winn concedes that playing host to a mysterious ailment frightened her.
“It was that long word. I didn't know what to expect,” she said of her initial reaction to the diagnosis.
At the time, Winn's doctor told her she would likely need a transplant in 10 years. She went 13 before receiving Morgan's kidney in January.
“When I met her, she was already at 18 percent kidney function,” Kondle said.
Trying to stave off the impending transplant, Winn took her medication, thoroughly followed her doctor's recommendations and eventually underwent dialysis at home. She hooked up to a machine for eight hours a night. If her children called, she couldn't come to them.
“That was the hardest thing,” she said.
Winn took it in stride until her doctor told her it was time for the transplant.
“That was a blow,” she said tearfully. “It was like, OK, my time is really running out. We have to do this.”
Then she discovered her husband, who she had been told could give her a kidney, was in fact not a match. So Kondle stepped in.
“Our effort was to get her a transplant as quick as possible,” Kondle said.
He appealed to Winn's church, Church of the Nazarene Yuba City.
“She belongs to this community,” he said. “She belongs to this church.”
Bob and Marcy Morgan, who attend the same church, began praying for Winn when they heard of her plight.
“When you start praying for someone, that draws you close. God makes that connection before anything else happens,” said Marcy Morgan, 42, of Yuba City.
Winn is the first person Bob, 46, of Yuba City, met who needed a transplant.
“The more I prayed for Carolyn, the more I felt God was working on me,” he said.
The Morgans decided together to get tested to see if either of them could help Winn. They were the first after Winn's husband to be considered as donors.
“We're so similar. It's easy to see us in the same situation. I know I'd appreciate the help,” Marcy said.
Less than a month after Winn asked for her church's support, tests determined Bob was a match.
Winn figures God led her to Yuba City to meet the Morgans.
“If I hadn't moved (from Chicago), the transplant wouldn't have gone so easy,” she said of the predominantly black city where hypertension and other common health concerns pose problems for people who might otherwise donate.
“We're obedient to God. If God wants us here, this is where we'll be,” Winn said.
Bob's words echo Winn's.
“God has put things in order. I don't worry,” said Bob, whose family had relocated to Yuba City within months of the Winn's arrival.
Specialists give Winn's new kidney a life span of 17 years, she said. Winn would not have lasted long without it.
Kondle said the community's receptiveness played a major role in this story.
“Community as a whole can do a lot more than a single, specialized physician,” Kondle said. “This is a motivational story. We need more like it.”
Appeal-Democrat reporter Eve Hightower can be reached at 749-4724. You may e-mail her at ehightower@appeal-democrat.com.