By Ashley McLeod, Staff writer
Apr 21, 2016, 13:22
COLONIAL HEIGHTS — Explaining to a group of first-graders that your kidney was removed to save someone’s life was something one Tussing Elementary teacher said was an interesting experience.
“It was very funny telling my class about it,” said Tracey Ridpath, who recently underwent surgery in order to donate one of her kidneys to a Norfolk woman suffering from kidney failure.
“A couple of kids were like ‘When I get older I’m going to give somebody a kidney. Another kid goes ‘I ain’t going to give nobody a kidney, I don’t like pain.’ And one little girl, I said ‘You look really upset, what’s wrong?’ And she said ‘I’m afraid someone’s going to take my kidney.’ It was an experience,” Ridpath said.
The Colonial Heights resident went under the knife March 21, having one of her kidneys removed and given to another patient.
Ridpath said her path to kidney donation began following the death of Roger Green, a respected and well-known member of the community.
“I started thinking about it, and I told my husband, I couldn’t save Roger, but if Roger would’ve needed a kidney to save him, there would have been a hundred people signed up to give him a kidney,” she said.
“I couldn’t help him, but there’s a lot of other people who are sick, and I can help one of those people in memory of Roger,” Ridpath said.
She began her research for going about the procedure in December of last year, starting with Googling the process, and then emailing and calling the Medical Center of Virginia at Virginia Commonwealth University to get more information.
After contacting the right people, Ridpath went in for a series of tests, including blood work, x-rays, and an MRI. The tests were held in order to make sure she was healthy enough to undergo the procedure as well as to find out if she would be an appropriate match for anyone on the kidney donation list.
Going into the testing, Ridpath said she was only nervous that she would not be able to donate.
“I was afraid that they were going to tell me I couldn’t do it, and I would’ve been really disappointed,” she said.
But all of the tests came back normal, and Ridpath was on the way to fulfilling her wish to honor Green.
On Monday, March 21, Ridpath went into MCV and underwent the surgery to have one of her kidneys removed and given to another patient who was in need of the donation.
Ridpath said the surgery went smoothly, and she was up and walking around the next day. Not that she was worried about it at all.
“I never let myself get nervous about the surgery; I knew it was going to be hard,” Ridpath said. “I was going to do it either way.”
While in the hospital, Ridpath was able to do something a lot of donors don’t do: meet the patient whose life she saved by donating her organ.
Ridpath said before the procedure, she didn’t know much about the kidney recipient, just that she was a woman around the same age.
Following the procedure, the patient who received the kidney was given an envelope from Ridpath, which included a green handmade bracelet, which symbolized kidney donation awareness. The card did not include Ridpath’s name or any contact information, but the patient saw the gift as a sign to make contact.
“It seemed like she wanted to reach out and contact me,” said Djuna Paige, the woman who received the kidney.
Paige, who lives in Norfolk, was diagnosed with Lupus, a chronic inflammatory disease where the immune system attacks its own tissues. In Paige’s case, the disease attacked her kidneys.
“They couldn’t do anything else to save my kidneys, so I was put on dialysis,” Paige said.
For five years, Paige underwent dialysis treatments in order to stay alive. The treatments take the place of kidneys, filtering waste and other harmful fluids from the blood.
Paige’s husband had signed up to donate a kidney for his wife, but due to certain medical reasons, the risk was too high for his kidney to be donated to her.
That’s when Paige found out there was another donor, Ridpath, who was available.
“I was so excited to find out that we were a perfect match,” Paige said.
Paige’s husband still donated a kidney that day, to a male in his mid-20s, also at MCV in need of a transplant.
Following the surgeries, and after receiving the gift from Ridpath, Paige decided to reach out to her donor, sending Ridpath a card with her name and phone number inside of it.
“I went walking in the hall and I saw her sitting in her chair,” Ridpath said. “I went in her room and said ‘I’m just here to visit my kidney,’ and then we all started crying.”
“We were all really happy,” Paige said.
The two met each other’s families and exchanged information, and now keep in touch via Facebook, as well as texts and calls to one another.
So far, the recovery process has been good for both Ridpath and Paige, who went in Wednesday to get checked and also get staples removed from the surgery.
“The kidney is working fine, and so far there have been no complications. Everything is going great,” Paige said.
As for Ridpath, she went back to work two weeks after the surgery, with her “incision pillow,” a pillow she uses to protect the incision spot from getting bumped or hurt.
Ridpath said recovery from the surgery hasn’t been too bad, except for the fact she isn’t allowed to do yoga for six weeks, a practice she usually does about four times a week. But to Ridpath, the pain was, and is, worth it.
“For me, the times I’ve felt physically sore or anything, it’s helped me a lot to know that I’ve met her, and I know she’s doing well. It’s helped me remembered why I did it. And I would do it again in a second,” said Ridpath.
While Ridpath looks forward to fully healing and being able to do yoga again, Paige is looking forward to getting her life back.
“Hopefully I can live a normal life again. I’m looking forward to being able to get around, and to live life again,” Paige said.
