The donation was perfect timing for the recipient, a Lafayette College administrator.
Karen Forbes is eternally thankful for the kidney she received earlier this month. The problem is she isn't sure who to thank.
Forbes, director of counseling services at Lafayette College in Easton, received the kidney from a living donor who wishes to remain anonymous -- an arrangement that has happened roughly a half-dozen times in the past eight years at Lehigh Valley Health Network's transplant center.
The act was generous and selfless -- and just in time to bring special meaning to Thanksgiving.
"People do it because they want to do something good for somebody," said Dr. Michael Moritz, chief of transplant patient services at the health network. "It's something that modern medicine allows them to do safely and without too much pain. They just want to help somebody."
The kidney, offered by what transplant surgeons call an anonymous altruistic donor, was determined to be a match for Forbes in late October. That's when she got a call from the transplant team while in her office at Lafayette, where she's worked as a psychologist the past 26 years.
Forbes suffered with chronic kidney disease since being diagnosed seven years ago. She was placed on a transplant list in June 2010. As time passed and there was no word on a donor, Forbes said, her hope faded.
Without a transplant and with failing kidneys, uncertainty loomed. She faced regular dialysis, the prospect of having to give up her job and a worrisome future.
That all changed thanks to someone she doesn't know.
'Unworldly' timing
After the donor came forward, the transplant center ran the donor's blood type and profile through the 350 or so patients on the health network's transplant list, Moritz said. Forbes came up as a match.
When she got the call, her kidney function was 1 percent above what would be considered kidney failure, said her husband, Larry Gage.
"What's exceptional in this case is that in terms of a number of medical factors, the timing was just unworldly," said Moritz, who has headed the transplant center since 2005. "The timing could not have been better. It was perfect. If she had an identical twin, we would have done the surgery the exact same week."
Forbes, 52, underwent the four- to five-hour surgery on Nov. 20.
Altruistic kidney transplants are common and increasingly critical in the U.S., Moritz said. Dr. Lynsey Biondi, chief of pancreas transplants, removed the healthy kidney from the donor, and Moritz immediately sewed the organ into Forbes.
Donor's holiday wish
Hospital officials would release no details on the other patient but did release a statement provided by the donor, whose timing was deliberate.
“I want people to remember Thanksgiving," the donor said. "It seems to get forgotten between Halloween and Christmas. I wish the best for the recipient. I’ve always thought it’s better to give than to receive.”
Was it a man or a woman? A rich person? A poor one? A mother? A father? Forbes doesn't know.
But she wants the donor to understand what the gift of life means to her.
"It's so heartening," she said. "I can just imagine this person. I don't need to know what they look like. I just have this sense of goodness about them, and get to carry that around with me.
"It's just affirming about the potential goodness of human beings. Not only is it good for my health and my life, but emotionally, it just makes me happy and lifts my spirits to know someone would do this for me."
On Tuesday, during a follow-up appointment, Forbes delivered a letter to the hospital to be passed on to her donor. She wanted her donor to read it before today's holiday.
"I said thank you for saving my life -- for allowing me to imagine a future where I could feel hopeful instead of living in fear and worry all the time," Forbes said. "I shared a little about my life and how much it always meant to my family to be together, especially at this time of year."
Forbes and Gage live in Doylestown and have a 21-year-old son who lives in Massachusetts. They'll spend Thanksgiving together, with a new outlook.
“This is too good to be true,” said Gage, a psychologist who works for The College of New Jersey in Ewing Township, N.J. “In a world of negativity, this is a huge counterweight.”
Obligated to advocate
The donation, Forbes said, gives her a responsibility and obligation that she never would have had without it.
"The first thing I have to do is take very good care of myself," said Forbes, who hopes to be back to work by February. "I feel like I have to because I have a little piece of someone else inside me. I am obligated to take care of this kidney. And I think I have an obligation to talk about living donation.
"I didn't talk about my health before this. But I know this is changing my life and I want other people to benefit because I have. I also want to honor the work of the transplant team and everybody else at the hospital, who have been so wonderful. It's a way to give back for all of their efforts."
Moritz, the transplant surgeon, said the health network performs about 60 to 70 kidney transplants a year. Perhaps one out of 100 are from anonymous altruistic donors, he said. The hospital insists on maintaining anonymity.
"There should be no sense of obligation that the recipient should feel like they owe them in an emotional or material way," Moritz said. "There is no debt. There can't be, for ethical reasons."
Some donor patients eventually agree to meet their recipient. Others don't. In either case, the recipient is left with one thing:
Thanks.
"It's more intense than the gratitude that they might feel toward the family of a deceased donor, and it's different than the gratitude to a living donor who you know," Moritz said. "Someone did something to help them, expecting nothing in return. It's amazing."