SAN ANTONIO – Having undergone a difficult childbirth three months earlier, Christina Psencik said she was completely taken aback when her husband Eric was told he was suffering end-stage renal failure.
Christina said she asked, “You have the right chart, right? He’s 34-years-old. He is not diabetic. He does not have high cholesterol. He is not overweight.”
In fact, Christina said they had worked out the night before he walked into the emergency room, only to wind up in the ICU for several weeks.
Eric Psencik, an oncology researcher, said he had noticed bruising on his arm, then began feeling more and more tired, but thought it was due to helping his wife with their newborn and working full-time.
“The first two nights were pretty scary,” Eric said. “These last few months have been a little bit better, but the first few were a little rough.”
Christina, a teacher in the San Antonio Independent School District, immediately offered to donate one of her kidneys, but was told she couldn’t because of the trauma she endured during childbirth.
But then the couple learned about the Champions for Life program offered by the University Health Transplant Institute.
Jennifer Milton, the program’s chief administrator, said Champions for Life teaches friends and family members how to become advocates by making direct public appeals in their search for living donors.
“They’re learning successful ways to do outreach and public relations to share their loved one’s story,” Milton said.
Christina Psencik put the lessons to use by creating a Facebook page for her husband.
“It’s amazing how quickly you can communicate with somebody that’s thousands of miles away,” she said.
Out of the 300 people who responded, Christina said although it didn’t work out, three of them were willing to donate their kidneys.
Even now, she said, people are “reaching out to me, messaging me, sending thoughts and prayers.”
Milton, who is also the chair of Donate Life America, a nonprofit that is focused on registering donors, said, not only are living donors the quickest way to find a needed organ, “Previous living donors have a longer life expectancy than the general population.”
“Being a kidney living donor or a liver living donor has no long term effects on your health,” Milton said.
Eric’s appeal for a living donor is simple and heartfelt.
“Please, please donate a kidney for me,” he said. “Just so I can be there for my son.”
For more information about becoming a living donor, click here.
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