Carrie Fairchild donated her kidney to a stranger, sparking a transplant chain that has given six people a second chance at life, and the list is still growing.
But her organ donation is not what she really wants to talk about, but rather about her ability to recover from the procedure without the worry of how much time off from work she was using.
Fairchild, management coordinator for Tucson’s City Attorney’s Office, would rather focus on how her boss, City Attorney Michael Rankin, pushed for an amendment to the City’s Leave Benefit Plan that allowed her and other living organ and bone marrow donors additional paid time off from their jobs.
As of March 2018, full- or part-time city of Tucson employees who serve as a bone marrow or living organ donors are entitled to up to five or 30 days of paid leave, respectively.
“It occurred to me that someone doing something so extraordinary shouldn’t have to use sick or vacation leave,” Rankin said.
Previously, employees would have used their own paid time off to donate. The amendment brought the city on par with state and federal employee benefit policies.
Helping a stranger
Fairchild, said the whole experience of donating a kidney was “ridiculously easy.” The worst of it was merely “uncomfortable.”
Yes, she fought nausea and discomfort from sitting and standing up, she said, but the worst discomfort came from receiving “praise for something I needed to do that was not that difficult for me to do.”
She hopes others will consider donating as well but recognizes that it was a privilege to donate her kidney.
“It’s something I’ve thought about almost daily throughout this process ... how privileged I am to have my health, a good job with benefits and a supportive family, co-workers and friends,” Fairchild said. “I’m blessed in my life, and it was my privilege to get to do something that makes a real tangible difference in someone else’s life.”
Fairchild was motivated to donate her kidney in April 2017 after watching a video on what’s called a nondirected kidney donation.
Here’s how it works: Nondirected kidney donors, like Fairchild, offer their kidneys to any stranger who is a good match. The lucky recipient will sometimes have someone willing to give them their kidney but wasn’t a good match. Their willing donor can then be matched to another stranger in need, thus creating a donation chain that helps multiple people.
The chain continues for as long as matches and willing donors are found.
The video “took something abstract in my mind and demystified it,” Fairchild said.
That same month, someone she knew from college posted on Facebook that he needed a kidney, but because of insurance complications she was unable to donate to him. He eventually found a donor.
But once she decided donation was something she was willing to do, she thought, “Why do I need to know the person who gets the kidney?”
The need for donors
Kidneys are fist-size and filter excess waste and water from the blood to form urine. Poorly functioning kidneys lead to high blood pressure and kidney failure.
An average of 13 people on the kidney wait list die daily, according to the National Kidney Foundation. That’s the first fact in a detailed list Fairchild rattled off when justifying her decision.
Many people die on dialysis, the mechanical purification of blood, Fairchild added. Dialysis can sustain people, but it doesn’t compare to having a healthy working kidney.
“People are ill and exhausted and families are depleted financially, emotionally and physically,” she said. “There are reasons to donate if you can.”
About 100,000 people are on the kidney transplant wait list across the country, said Dr. Caroline Jadlowiec, Fairchild’s surgeon at the Mayo Clinic’s transplant center in Phoenix. Every year, about 30,000 people are added.
More than 1,800 people in Arizona are waiting for a kidney, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.
On average, a deceased-donor kidney transplant lasts 10 years. Comparatively, a living-donor transplant lasts, on average, 12 to 15 years, Jadlowiec said.
Wait time in Arizona Three to five years
Fortunately the Arizona wait list is relatively shorter than some other parts of the country, Jadlowiec said.
The kidney wait list in Arizona is about three to five years, but the wait in other parts of the country can be 10 years. The difference is due to population size, availability, experience of surgeons and resources.
Any healthy individual over 18 could be a potential donor, Jadlowiec said, adding there’s no real age limit for a kidney donor. Although she stressed that every program adheres to different policies.
Fairchild spent four days in the fall of 2017 traveling to Mayo Clinic in Phoenix to make sure she was healthy enough to donate and not at risk for kidney disease. Although, she added, if she or other donors ever do need a kidney in the future, they are added to the top of the list.
But she said once she made the decision, she didn’t worry much.
“The chance of needing a kidney in the future was so small, and the chance of helping someone was so large,” she said.
Moreover, she felt confident the Mayo Clinic would take care of her. “The outcomes are really good for donors,” she said.
Mayo Clinic surgeons have a lot of practice. Mayo’s transplant teams in Phoenix, Minnesota and Florida comprise one of the largest living-donor kidney transplant programs in the country. Together, the three perform more than 600 kidney transplants a year. Mayo Clinic in Phoenix did 360 last year.
Back to work
Before Fairchild was granted additional paid leave, she promised she would schedule the surgery during a time that would be best for the office.
“Carrie is extraordinarily conscientious,” Rankin said.
Fairchild’s surgery was Jan. 2. She was back to work in under three weeks, well before her allotted five weeks of paid leave were up. Jadlowiec said the majority of kidney donors recover in about a month.
“I’m surprised that anyone thinks of doing this when it’s not in the context of someone they know,” Rankin said. “But it didn’t surprise me it was her to do it.”
