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Patient Profiles

Falsey Family

There's no doubt that as the transplant waiting list continues to grow, so will living donation. Having a relative, friend or co-worker step forward as a living donor is something regularly reported in newspapers across the country.

To have five donors in one family, however, as with the Falseys, is rare and remarkable. It all started when Tom Falsey's 29-year-old nephew, Aaron, needed a kidney transplant. His initial transplant from childhood had begun to fail. Aaron's mother (Falsey's sister-in-law) had been the original donor. Falsey was tested as Aaron's living donor, but there was a last-minute complication.

"We were 48 hours from surgery when it was cancelled," Falsey said. Fortunately, Aaron's sister, Michelle, was able to donate for Aaron's second transplant in 2002.

But Falsey already had his mind set on donation his kidney; if not to his nephew, then to someone. What prompted him to become an anonymous living donor despite not being a match to his nephew?

Falsey explained that "about two years after that surgery was cancelled, Nebraska Medical Center developed its anonymous donor program. Meanwhile, Aaron had already received his transplant, and his health turned around immediately."

The recipient of Falsey's generosity was Jordon Shaw, a 16-year-old from Omaha, Neb., whose kidneys had failed due to childhood cancer. The living donor kidney transplant was in 2003.

"I downplayed this to my family at first because I didn't want them to be concerned with my surgery. I had support from every member of my family," Falsey said. Falsey's decision actually caused a domino effect within his family.

"My brother, Jim, started to do research on his own once he heard about me donating a kidney. He had already signed up for the bone marrow registry."

Jim then donated anonymously in 2004 to Karen Bryce from Michigan at St. John Hospital and Medical Center in Detroit.

The most recent family member to donate was Falsey's wife, Joyce. She continued the circle of generosity by anonymously donating her kidney last September at Nebraska Medical Center to Regina McDonald, 38, of Omaha.

As of this writing, all recipients are doing well.

"People assume that if you match with someone for a kidney it has to be a 'miracle match,' but with medications it's no big deal. Look at all the transplants taking place with deceased donors--they're not related."

According to UNOS, 34 percent of living donors are not biologically related. "Basically anyone who wants to donate, and is healthy enough, could certainly match someone out there," Falsey said.

And indeed this giving family has proven that more than once.

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