Giving the gift of life, frat brother to another
College friends are proof of advances 50 years after the first organ transplant
BY TAMMIE SMITH
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Dec 24, 2004
When Anthony Whitney and Scott Johnson joined the same Greek-letter fraternity while students at Virginia State University, they made a pledge of brotherhood.
The letter "K" each has branded on his upper arm symbolizes their commitment to each other and to their fraternity, Kappa Alpha Psi.
Johnson, 34, didn't waver then, when he found out his former schoolmate and roommate needed a kidney transplant. Whitney's kidneys had deteriorated as the result of undetected and untreated high blood pressure.
By the time he went to a doctor complaining of dizzy spells, the situation was serious. By late 2003, so much damage had been done that Whitney was told he would eventually have to go on dialysis, a mechanical means of doing the work of the kidneys.
"My mentality was if I have to go on dialysis, I will just do it and go on the national transplant list," said Whitney, 33, a computer analyst and Richmond resident. "I didn't want to put somebody else through that sort of ordeal to help me out."
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He didn't want to ask any family members for a kidney. People on the national list typically get cadaver organs. But they may wait for years.
What Whitney didn't understand was how much his friendship meant to Johnson. Before Johnson and his wife Nicole married three years ago, he told her of his intention to see if he could be an organ donor for Whitney should the need arise. When that time came this year, they talked again.
"My wife and I prayed on it," said Johnson, a self-employed insurance agent who lives in Clinton, Md.
"It took me probably 20 minutes" to decide. "He needed a kidney. I knew how the waiting time was for getting an organ . . . Life and death is a matter of a breath. You cannot take that for granted."
The surgery, with their families' blessings, took place Dec. 8 at Henrico Doctors' Hospital, Forrest campus. Both donor and recipient are doing well and want their story to be an inspiration.
Whitney urges people, especially African-Americans, to be mindful that high blood pressure is not called the "silent killer" for nothing. Johnson wants people to view what he has done as something they also can do. He urges them to at least sign up to be organ donors at death.
Stories like theirs, of benevolence and unselfishness, have been repeated thousands of times since the nation's first successful long-term organ transplant was done 50 years ago.
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