Key points from today’s guests:

Jessica Meza, donated kidney to 5-year-old son, Brennan

• Brennan has Eagle-Barrett syndrome, commonly known as prune belly syndrome. It means he was born without a full wall of stomach muscles. The syndrome comes with a host of other problems. Brendon was also born with stage four kidney disease. He was in kidney failure and on dialysis before he was even one year old.
• But six weeks ago Jessica finally got the call. She was approved to donate her kidney.
• Her process started three years ago, losing 50 pounds in preparation for the transplant and waiting out delays due to COVID.
• After the transplant, both Jessica and Brennan are healthy and doing well.
• The biggest change is that before the transplant, Brennan had a lot of uremia due to his kidney disease, so he was nauseous all the time and throwing up several times a day. Post-transplant there was no more nausea and throwing up.
• They are most looking forward to Brennan being able to live a normal life and do all the same things that the kids that his age are doing -- and spending less time in the hospital.

Dr. Sean Kumer, transplant surgeon, The University of Kansas Health System

• Living donor transplants are a unique situation where I always tell the donors you’ll be the only person here getting an operation you don't need. This is making another patient better, not you. It can be painful and it can have side effects like depression and other things.
• That’s why this is such a wonderful gift and what makes donors such heroes.
• When it comes to an adult donor and a child recipient, we have a really unique relationship with Children's Mercy so that we kind of share the responsibility, which has worked great over many years.
• The timing and communication is critical between two hospitals conducting simultaneous surgeries for transplant.
• It’s all about fitting things together when you are dealing with different sizes.
• Living donors save lives and that’s very heroic.

Dr. Jeff Klein, nephrologist, The University of Kansas Health System

• Individuals that are looking to do a physical donation of an organ for the good of someone else -- it's kind of like someone who is training for an event.
• And when the event is over, the smoke clears then it's the emotions come out and it's really mixed. Some people are excited. Some people are ambivalent. Some are anxious or depressed.
• Depression is probably about 10 percent of transplant cases, which is in line with the general population, but the timing of it can be totally unpredictable for transplant patients.
• Depression is extremely common in kidney disease patients so probably a third or more of patients have depression with end stage kidney disease and generally does improve after transplant particularly for patients that have been on dialysis because their quality of life is pretty dramatically improved.
• Statistically, for most kidney donors, they live a normal life with adequate kidney function for a normal lifespan.
• Please consider organ donation, whether that's signing a donor card or looking into living donation.

Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director, infection prevention & control, The University of Kansas Health System

• COVID hospitalizations this week have decreased from 20 patients last week to 15 patients this week.
• The drugmaker AstraZeneca is asking the FDA to approve a self-administered flu vaccine as a nasal spray that would not be decided until next year at the earliest.
• If the FDA says yes, it will be the first ever flu vaccine that doesn't require a health care worker to administer.
• We know that there are multiple barriers to getting different vaccines, so if this helps eliminate one of those very barriers, it can be good for the population.

Wednesday, Oct. 25 at 8 a.m. CT is the next Open Mics with Dr. Stites. Four years after the FDA approved life-changing meds for patients with cystic fibrosis, we check in with a patient to see the amazing differences.

ATTENTION MEDIA: Please note access is with Microsoft Teams:

Join on your computer or mobile app

Click here to join the meeting

Meeting ID: 235 659 792 451
Passcode: 6CSfGE

Download Teams | Join on the web

Or call in (audio only)

+1 913-318-8863,566341546#   United States, Kansas City

TVU Grid link: UoK_Health_SDI

Restream links: Facebook.com/kuhospital

YouTube.com/kuhospital

Send advance questions to medicalnewsnetwork@kumc.edu.