Teacher-student kidney transplant a success

By Miriam L. Wallach

It was over a year in the making or, some might say, two lifetimes.

The successful transplant of Jennifer Perretti’s kidney to Kevin Federman O’Brien happened last Thursday, nearly a year after their story was first told in The Jewish Star and several months later than planned. Dr. Perretti, the director of student services at HAFTR Middle School, taught O’Brien in summer school for two years. Last summer he became seriously ill, prompting a search for a kidney donor that ended when she was found to be a near-perfect match.

It was a smooth drive from Woodmere to Manhattan — it would have been strange to hit traffic at 4:45 a.m., even on the Van Wyck. While walking back to the hospital after parking my car, I was taken by the stillness of the city, as if I was awake but the rest of the world was still asleep. The hospital was far from quiet, however; while I was the only person entering through the visitor’s line, it could have been two o’clock in the afternoon.

I explained to the security guard that I was there to be with my friend while she donated her kidney. Seemingly unimpressed, he handed me a visitor’s pass and motioned toward the elevator. “Third floor,” he said. It occurred to me that he was not being rude; he’d simply heard it all before.

“I guess that happens here all the time,” I said, “and I’m just going to go home and have an iced coffee when this is all over and things like this are just going to keep happening in this building, right?” He smiled, looked me in the eye and said, “Exactly.”

Four transplants were scheduled for that day, a nurse on the surgical team told me, not including unscheduled organ recoveries that might lead to transplants in other locations. How many transplants did they do a year at this hospital, I asked?  “Oh, I could not say for sure,” she responded, “but a LOT.” The enormity of this left me humbled and awed. To remove an organ from a living body and place it in another, while ensuring both that the donor’s body continues to function and that the recipient’s body would adapt — this is more than just skill and precision, intense training and immense intellect. It is nothing short of a miracle.