The number of COVID patients at The University of Kansas Health System is down today. 18 with the active virus are being treated, down from 21 yesterday. Eight patients are in the ICU, down from nine yesterday. Four are on ventilators, down from five yesterday. 28 other patients are still hospitalized because of COVID but are out of the acute infection phase, up from 25 yesterday. That’s a total of 46 patients, the same as yesterday. HaysMed has 16 total patients.
On today’s Morning Media Update, actor Erron Jay, living his dream in Hollywood, thought he had caught COVID, but learned he was actually in kidney failure. Erron found himself on a transplant list and his search for a living donor brought him back home to KCK and sparked a kidney chain. He joined us live along with his surgeon and director of transplantation here at the health system, Dr. Timothy Schmitt, to talk about transplant in a time of COVID.
Erron Jay, or EJ as his friends call him, grew up in KCK. He went to Hollywood to pursue his dream of being an actor. He’s become quite successful, but all that came to a halt at the beginning of the pandemic. He thought he had COVID, but it turned out to be another serious problem, failing kidneys. Here’s his story.
Erron is doing well today and just had what he calls his 90-day graduation after his transplant. But he admits he was terrified when he first heard the news and thought it was a death sentence, especially with the pandemic just heating up. He came back to his childhood home in KCK to live with his aunt while starting a social media campaign looking for a kidney donor. He was on dialysis for three months when an old friend named Amy stepped forward to offer one of her kidneys. She wasn’t a match, but she did match with somebody else, and it began a three-way kidney chain at the health system in which three donors gave three recipients new kidneys. He’s amazed at the difference the transplant has made and says he didn’t realize just how bad he felt until he got the new kidney and now feels the best he has in years. He just has a few more months of follow up tests and doctor visits, but his plan is to return to Hollywood and his acting career in mid-January. He’s extremely grateful to all those who helped spread the word and those donors who made the kidney chain possible. He calls it the number one experience of his life and describes it as a “most beautiful lesson” in how to receive a gift. He plans to use his experience and voice to be an advocate for kidney donations, speaking at several national events. He says he faced a lot fears and unknowns during this time. But his mantra through all of this has been, “Faith over fear. Faith in my God and faith in my village.”
Dr. Schmitt says Erron’s transformation is typical of kidney transplant patients. He says, “Kidney disease is so insidious that you tend to feel bad and you don’t even know it until you feel good.” Symptoms of kidney failure can be headaches, feeling tired and rundown all the time, muscle cramping and even a change in skin color. He explained that kidneys filter out a lot of the body’s toxins and why it’s such a problem when they don’t work properly. Without a transplant, dialysis is the only thing that keeps these patients alive, and that’s a huge lifestyle change. He says kidneys from living donors work better than those from cadavers, but only 25 to 30 percent of transplants come from live donors, some as old as their 60’s. He described how a kidney chain works and said as many as five donors and five recipients have participated in one at the health system. He stressed the best way to keep your kidneys healthy is to exercise, eat right, maintain a good weight, and stay hydrated. He also pointed out a new requirement that patients on the transplant waiting list must have received the COVID vaccine, as well as all of the other available vaccines.
Dana Hawkinson, MD, medical director of Infection Prevention and Control at The University of Kansas Health System, thinks we may have reached a plateau in the number of COVID cases and anticipates it will be the new normal for the next few weeks. After that, with mask mandates expiring and people going indoors because of the colder weather, the numbers may go back up, especially with so many unvaccinated people in the community. He also says he’s skeptical about news reports that an anti-depressant is helping diminish symptoms of COVID. While the headlines make it look promising, the fine print shows it didn’t reduce hospitalizations or deaths.
Steve Stites, MD, chief medical officer at The University of Kansas Health System, pointed out that for transplant patients, such as Erron, the new recommendation will be a series of three shots and then a booster. He also feels having the vaccine approved for kids 5 to 11, which is expected soon, may help keep the COVID numbers down over the holidays, but only if parents get their kids vaccinated right away.
Friday, October 29 at 8:00 a.m. is the next Morning Medical Update. You’ll meet a couple of respiratory therapists and find out why they have one of the most stressful jobs in the hospital during COVID. We’ll also answer questions from the media and those from viewers we didn’t have time for earlier this week.
NOTE: Journalists should rejoin the Morning Medical Update at 8am as doctors are growing too busy again for individual interview requests. Please bring questions or send to medicalnewsnetwork@kumc.edu until further notice. Thanks for all you do and helping to keep the community safe with your reporting.
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