'He's My Hero': Brother Saves Sister's Life with Transplant

It’s alarming how life can suddenly change without you noticing, or without your permission.

That uncomfortable reality came crashing down on Dawn Furze, of Moorestown, last spring. One day, Furze was a happy wife and mother of three adolescent children, active in the community, working at an attorney’s office downtown; the next, she was in kidney failure, hooked up to a catheter in the emergency room at Virtua.

Furze knew there was something wrong with her before her kidneys quit. She’d been feeling “blah” for some time: tired, weak, nauseous—especially at night. She suffered from Goodpasture syndrome, an autoimmune disease that ended up attacking her kidneys. Furze was laid up at Virtua briefly, before a major setback sent her to Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, where she stayed for three weeks.

When she was released from the hospital, Furze’s life took on a dramatically different complexion. Three-day-a-week dialysis, which made her very weak. An extremely restrictive diet: only one bottle of water a day, no ice cream, no soup, no potatoes, no tomatoes, and a whole laundry list of other items that were too high in either sodium or potassium.

She had to stop working. She lost a lot of weight and started taking multiple medications, including steroids, which made her face puffy.

“I was in very bad shape. It’s a very depressing life,” she said. “I was getting sad. Life was really becoming very difficult for me, just because I didn’t feel like I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

The light at the end of the tunnel

Furze was an obvious candidate for a transplant and pretty soon the donors started trickling in to Penn, which handled the transplant process. Then, thanks to a mass email her sister-in-law sent out to friends and family, they began pouring in.

“People in town came up to me and put their names on the list … It got to a point where Penn said, ‘Stop sending donors in,’” Furze said with a laugh.

Her brother, Bill Kelly, was the second person to toss his name in the hat (Furze’s husband was first on the list, but was ruled out early since they didn’t match blood types) and it became clear early on he was not only a match, but the perfect match. There are six antigens that need to match on some level for a transplant to take, and Kelly was six for six.

“He came over and he was like, ‘I’m a match,’ and I felt so bad,” said Furze. “I was so happy. I cried, but at the same time I felt terrible.”

She felt guilty, she said, because even as the donor the road ahead was not an easy one for her brother. He had to take off work and subject himself to round after round of testing. It meant time away from his wife and children, including his infant twins.

Initially, Furze said, her brother’s biggest fear was that doctors would discover something was wrong with him during the battery of testing.

“He was very nervous, because they scare you a little bit,” she said. “They do such extensive testing that, if there is something wrong with you, they’re going to find it … Once he found out he was good, he got more enthusiastic about it.”

For Kelly though, it wasn’t so much a choice as an obligation. Aside from a conversation with his wife, he said he didn’t give the matter too much thought.

“At least in my mind, it’s very much not a decision,” he said. “If my wife wasn’t comfortable with it, I would have had to sit down (and think about it). My wife put herself in my shoes and asked herself, ‘If my sister needed this, what would I do?’”

Even after Kelly was more or less locked in as “the” donor, the testing took several months while doctors made sure he was in perfect health. Meanwhile, Furze continued to endure the thrice-weekly dialysis treatments and the fatigue and the dour mood. Fortunately, her family, friends and neighbors swooped in early and often to help.

“I wouldn’t have been able to survive if it hadn’t been for people in this town,” she said, “because people just took my kids, people mowed our lawn, people brought food … I always had a ride someplace.”

Not to mention the people who added their name to the growing list of potential donors.

“I was sick for so long,” she said. “You think it’s going to end, people are going to move on with their lives. It doesn’t.”

'He's my hero really'

There is a level of irony in the fact that Kelly was Furze’s ideal donor. As a very young child, Kelly kept getting urinary tract infections, Furze said, and physicians suggested having one of his kidneys removed. Fortunately for Furze, the doctors at St. Christopher’s in Philadelphia advised against it.

It wasn’t until Kelly began undergoing tests for the transplant that they discovered what was up: One of his kidneys was a normal kidney, with a smaller kidney attached at the bottom, or as Furze put it a “super kidney.”

Needless to say, the day of the operation—last month—was nerve-racking for everyone, not least of all Furze’s parents, who had to see both their children go under the knife simultaneously.

“I was always afraid something was going to not pan out,” Furze said. “Because this whole time there was so many things that happened to me, that I didn’t really believe it till I was actually in the hospital. I was afraid it wasn’t even going to work.”

Any doubts she had however were quickly brushed aside when she awoke after the surgery and immediately felt better. “It’s working,” they told her.

Furze hasn’t returned to work yet and she’s still on medication—mostly anti-rejection drugs to make sure her body accepts the transplant, which she may take the rest of her life—but for the most part, life has returned to normal. No more boring diet. No more fatigue. No more dialysis. All thanks to her brother and his super kidney.

“He’s my hero really,” she said.

Unfortunately, recovery is lengthier for the donor than the recipient. Kelly is still at home (he’s supposed to return to work tomorrow) and has had to take care with his incision. He had trouble sleeping and sitting in certain positions the first couple weeks post-surgery and couldn’t lift anything more than 15 pounds—which included his children.

“It’s been a little difficult,” he said modestly. “To see my sister make such a change in her life and what it’s doing for her, it’s the rewarding part really.”

And all that goodwill that was (and still is) being piled upon Furze and her family pre-transplant? Now it’s flowing Kelly’s way: The rides, the meals, the babysitting.

“It’s a very strong foundation of friends and family that have helped throughout all this,” he said.