Three sons were able to give their moms the greatest gift of all – life, when they each donated a kidney to them recently.
Dominick Dean of Jamaica, Anthony Ciambone of Elmont and Dennis Geiger of Manhattan made the kidney donations to their moms through the North Shore University Hospital Transplant Center, in Manhasset. According to the center’s director, Dr. Ernesto Molmenti, the chances of finding a compatible match during parent/child donations are 50 percent.
“No matter how old we get, we always run to our moms with our problems,” said Dean, whose mother Nicole also lives in Queens. “It feels great to know that, for once, I was able to be there for her.”
Some of the causes of the women’s kidney disease included infection, auto-immune disease and hypertension. All three were “certain to face renal failure,” according to a hospital press release.
“We were told that people who are placed on a transplant list have to wait more than five years,” Ciambone said. “My mom didn’t have that kind of time. This [my donation] is what had to be done.”
In honor of Valentine’s Day, the sons and mothers got together to speak about their stories during a press conference, while also sending out a very important message – that people can lead normal lives with one healthy kidney.
“We want people to understand that parents must lose their fears about asking their children for an organ donation,” Molmenti said. “Once adult children have all the information, they understand that what they are actually doing is extending the quality of life of their parent.”
North Shore-LIJ’s web site, www.northshorelij.com, states that, “Kidney donation is the most frequent type of living organ donation. There is little risk for the donor to live with one kidney because the remaining kidney compensates to do the work of both kidneys.”
According to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (www.optn.transplant.hrsa.gov), there are currently 7,249 people waiting for kidney transplants in New York State and 84,427 in the entire United States. It is the organ with the largest waiting list.
Anyone wishing to find out more about organ donation or becoming a part of the New York State Donate Life Registry can visit the New York Organ Donor Network web site at www.donatelifeny.org. It is a non-profit organization serving Greater New York’s metropolitan area. It is the second largest organ procurement organization in the country.
