One of my former cheerleaders is a hero in my eyes. God Bless Kazu Yamaguchi!
February 22, 2011 at 10:56am
One of my former cheerleaders is a hero in my eyes. I read this story and it brought tears to my eyes. After I was in my accident and lost everything (job, marriage, health, company, house…) Kazu was one of the ony friends who steped up to help and support me. I was his coach, but he taught me a lot about human connection!
This is a stroy that was in the news after his heroic donation of a Kidney to a friend…
“View the World with an Open Heart”
On March 25th at 6AM Kazu Yamiguchi sat across from his friend in the waiting room of the UW Surgery Center. A journey that had lasted a year was coming to an end. Little did either of them realize is that while one man waited for his life to begin the other would be on the brink of losing his. It’s an amazing story about compassion, empathy and the incredible ability each of us has to change a life, to save a life-to open our hearts.
Kazu is a member here at The Valley. If you haven’t met him, you need to. I was introduced to him by John Robertson. John called me at home and said “Anne, you need to talk to this guy, you need to hear his story.” I was given a brief introduction to his story-he donated a kidney to a friend, stood by his friend while everyone else had abandoned him, and almost died giving his friend the gift of life. I wish I could give Kazu’s story the time, attention to detail and poetic justice it deserves but here’s an abridged version. If we can all read this and walk away with a basic understanding of Kazu’s motivation, I feel we’ll all be better off.
This story really began long before March 25th. Kazu and his friend met over at WSU working at the Rec Center. Their friendship evolved from co-workers, to workout partners, and after college weddings and BBQ’s. When his friend’s Lupus attacked his kidney, putting him in kidney failure, Kazu began to visit him at the Dialysis Center. For three and a half years, the two friends meet at the dialysis center. Childhood friends came to visit, family was around, but Kazu was the only one that offered to get tested for organ donation. Luckily for his friend, both men are B+ blood. When I asked Kazu why he donated, when family, friends and spouses chose not to he explained it like this: We all have excuses most people looked at the individual consequence to themselves, but, if you really open up your heart you will realize that no excuse can trump saving a person’s life.
The process to become an organ donor is not an easy one, and just getting the paperwork started took more than a month, and finally a face-to-face visit at the UW campus. While getting the paperwork is a slow process, the testing is a physically exhausting one. The testing to become a donor includes a physical, notification from doctors, and medical tests. Kazu jumped through numerous hoops, really pushing the paper and the timetable as his friend became weaker and weaker on dialysis. The longer a recipient is on dialysis the weaker their body becomes, making them less of an ideal candidate for donation. As dialysis patients around him passed away his friend’s hope faded with each passing day.
But for as much as Kazu wanted to donate, he knew he had three medical reasons not too: high blood pressure, his family background and medical history, and vascular purpura (he was hospitalized for a month when he was four). His high blood pressure came back to haunt him. Knowing that he was an incredibly fit person and wanting to help his friend out, he met with the transplant doctor and begged for a retest. He had to have his blood pressure taken four more times. At every blood pressure retest he withheld food, sleep and water for 24 hours and donated blood the morning of the appointment in order to get his BP down. At the final BP restest the nurse took 15 vials of blood (normally they took 4) and Kazu fainted. Finally, Kazu being a man of faith prayed and prayed that he would be a match for his friend. He passed the final antigen test and was approved to be a donor.
On March 21st he had his final chance to back out of the process. His final tests were taken, he was on his way to giving his friend the gift of health, the gift of life.
As Kazu waited in the cold, sterile prep room the reality of his endeavor finally became clear. He was going to have an organ removed. Only then did he ever become scared. Before the operation remembers the nurse telling him “don’t worry, everything will be ok” Both men went under but when Kazu woke up he knew that something had gone terribly wrong.
It was a worst case scenario. As it was Kazu went into renal failure and had to go back into surgery. Before the second surgery the doctors did a CAT scan and found a 5 inch blood clot. During surgery Kazu lost 2/3rds of his blood and his organs began to shut down. After the second surgery he was in constant pain due to internal bruising, two large incisions and a cracked ribcage. He would wake up in the middle of the night with extreme pain, but could not communicate verbally. Kazu spend the next few days in a heavy hydro morphine daze. He had no energy to eat, or to walk, and spent his days in bed. But by the third day he had a dream a dream that spiritually lifted and pushed him out of the hospital bed to try walking. Everyone was amazed. His friend, the recipient is meanwhile making a fabulous recovery. His Lupus symptoms are in remission, he has a new lease on life. Six days later Kazu was finally discharged from the hospital.
I asked Kazu, after all of it – the testing, the inconveniences, the waiting, the surgery and recovery- if he would do it again. His answer, yes. “It was very nice to see him smile for the first time in 3.5 years. Everyone has a heart of compassion, but whether to open your heart or close your heart is one’s choice. I am not special by donating my kidney to my friend. There are so many people in need all around us. In many cases, we close our heart, and it is easier to choose not to see them. I was very fortunate to be in very lucky situation with wonderful opportunity to save my friends life. Everyone has opportunities to do very nice things to others. That could be another gift of life, or maybe gift of financial blessing, or maybe time to listen and care.
I just want everyone who reads this story to be encouraged to do nice things to others.”
