A Mutual Blessing

My colleague at Trustmark, Greta McGuire, has always been an overachiever.

In grade school, McGuire asked for extra homework. Her birthday presents are as legendary as the details of her vacation itineraries. Her sister put it this way: “she thinks of things most people wouldn’t and then takes it 8 million more steps.”

Speaking of steps, one weekend she was doing her typical 5-mile run on the treadmill. All of a sudden she decided she wanted to run a marathon. That same day she willed herself to stay on the treadmill. Dripping sweat and determination, she didn’t stop moving until she hit 26.2 miles.

These examples were just a warmup, though, to the gift she provided to two families in November; one she barely knew and the other she didn’t know at all.

After learning that colleague Paul Widener’s son, Cal, a junior at Belmont University, was in need of a kidney, McGuire volunteered to see if she was a match. On Nov. 21, McGuire successfully donated a kidney as part of a paired exchange at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Her kidney went to a man from Tennessee named Wade Gibbs while Gibbs’ wife donated to Cal.

When I asked her about her relationship with the Widener family, I expected that they were friends or at minimum worked closely together.

My eyes grew bigger as she told me that she rarely worked directly with Paul Widener.

 “I saw this as an incredible opportunity to do something good for someone in a way that I would describe as a mutual blessing,” said McGuire, simply, classily and elegantly.

McGuire first learned about the situation during a conversation with Paul Widener on a way to a business meeting.  She learned that Cal Widener, a strapping 6-foot-2, 240-pound member of the Belmont Track and Field Team, barely had the energy to make it through the day. She learned that some nights he was in so much pain that he could not sleep despite the fatigue. His kidney function was declining and, without a donor, dialysis was next.

 “I’m not a parent myself, but I can’t imagine anything harder than seeing a child facing their own mortality,” she said.

After thinking more and consulting with her husband, Ravi Chadha, she called Paul Widener and said she would like to get tested.

“I remember thinking she had to be crazy,” Widener said with a smile.

McGuire knew that donating a kidney is not easy. She was with her husband every step of the way in 2015 when he donated a kidney to his brother.

“He was my inspiration for even throwing my hat in the ring,” she said.

Of course, there was no guarantee that McGuire’s kidney would be a match. In fact, the odds were against it. Even siblings have less than a 50 percent probability of matching.

Undaunted, McGuire began the testing in June. After several rounds of tests and a trip to Vanderbilt University for in-person testing, she received a phone call to remember.

“I was as giddy as I was when I got accepted into Northwestern University for graduate school,” she said.

About one month before surgery, McGuire received another call. While her kidney was a solid match for Cal Widener, it was an even better match for Gibbs. In turn, Gibbs’ wife, Katie, had a kidney that was perfect for Cal Widener.

Would McGuire be OK with what is called a paired donation? How would she feel about donating to a stranger instead of someone from her work family?

“Why would you say no to something like that?” McGuire said.

This meant Gibbs would now get a call from Vanderbilt that would change his life. He had been waiting for this since 2005.

“They told me the match was so good it was almost like a relative,” he said.

Immediately after the surgery, Paul Widener remembers the surgeon initially describing the outcome as “fine.”

Fine? A meal can be fine; so can a night’s sleep or a business meeting. But, he thought, a surgery outcome demands more details.

So Widener immediately pressed for more information, asking the logical question, “What does fine mean?” With a chuckle the surgeon said, “terrific, wonderful” and a resident said it was one of the only times he’d seen the surgeon chuckle in two years.

Most of the time, the participants in a paired donation never meet and learn details of each other’s lives.

But this wasn’t like most paired donations.

The day after the surgery, McGuire, Cal Widener and family, and Wade and Katie Gibbs met each other in a conference room.

Wade Gibbs, feeling an overwhelming sense of gratitude, embraced McGuire and gave her an emotional bear hug.

“He was shaking and so choked up that he could barely talk,” Ravi Chadha said. “He kept mouthing ‘Thank you.’”

As is often the case, the recovery is easier for the person receiving the kidney as opposed to the donor.

Wade Gibbs enjoyed a near immediate surge of energy and within ten days of surgery he was walking three miles and back to work on the family farm.

“I was lethargic for so long, and now I’m doing all the stuff I didn’t have the energy for before,” he said. “It’s pretty extraordinary; I feel 15 years younger.”

The story was similar for Cal Widener.

“I went from having zero energy to 1,000 percent better,” he said. “I feel normal again.”

After taking some time to get her strength back, Katie Gibbs is back to her old self and wrote a beautiful email to McGuire about how she was the angel their family was waiting for.

As for McGuire, there have been some challenges. The first part of her recovery went smoothly, but two times she’s had to return to the hospital to have infections treated. Still, she believes the worst of the recovery is behind her and she views it as a short-term and, ultimately, irrelevant blip.

Since McGuire was not donating to a family member, she had to meet with a social worker before and after the surgery. The day after surgery, the social worker asked her if she had any regrets.

Far from it.

“I said that without a doubt it’s the best thing I’ve ever done in my life,” she said.