When things turn from serious to critical, sometimes you have to be “your own PR firm” in order to get the word out.
That’s how Chris Jachcinski described his and wife Karen Vetrovec’s mission to find a kidney in order to save her life.
“I feel like I’d be wasting a lot of time sitting idle,” he told me recently in an interview from the couple’s Naperville home. “We have to do something every day … and the more I can do … the better I will feel.”
Those looking for a life-saving organ is, unfortunately, not a unique story.
According to the National Kidney Registry, more than 90,000 people in the United States are on the wait list for a kidney transplant – 4,000 in Illinois alone. And that only includes potential recipients standing by for a deceased donor.
There is no central list for those in search of living donors. Which is why 66-year-old Vetrovec and her husband, 72, decided to reach out to the local media.
They found an especially sympathetic ear in this columnist.
I lost my “baby” brother to kidney disease in 2007. Intensely private about his health that he preferred to manage homeopathically, we did not learn how dire things had become until Jan Edward – my parents let me, a teenage fan of the singing group Jan and Dean, name their youngest of eight – had no choice but to go on dialysis.
We also had no choice in helping him. Before any of his many siblings could even be tested for a match, Eddie died at age 39.
Unlike my brother, whose kidneys had been damaged from an adolescent strep infection, Vetrovec’s disease, which she’d been living with most of her adult life, is genetic. Her mother and aunt received the gift of life from strangers, and last year her Texas brother received a kidney from their brother in Ohio.
For 43 years, Vetrovec has managed to keep her issue in check by watching her diet and with a variety of medications.
“I hit my 60s and was still doing fine,” she told me, “And I thought, this is great.”
Until it wasn’t.
After growing increasingly anemic and fatigued last year, tests in January revealed her kidneys were only performing at 16% capacity, which meant more aggressive treatment was necessary. And that, in turn, meant a transplant or dialysis.
That news came just a few months before she and Jachcinski were to be married.
Vetrovec had been upfront about her health issues when the two – both widowed – had met during the pandemic on a website for people who had lost spouses. Despite the challenges that lay before them, their April 27 wedding at a Naperville church went ahead as planned.
Vetrovec is currently on the donor transplant list at Rush Presbyterian and is also working with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, both of which use a QR code that makes it easier to find living donors. As Jachcinski pointed out, the best odds for survival after five years is a direct transplant as opposed to chemo dialysis, which gives the patient only a 43% chance of living more than five years.
Both centers, he added, “want us to make the situation known as widely as possible to encourage potential donors.”
That’s why the couple has not only reached out to the media, Vetrovec is using social media to spread the word. A brochure has also been made that describes her story and contains that important QR code, which links to Rush Living Kidney Donor Transplant Services.
And a couple weeks ago, she sent out over 90 letters to the stations of the Chicago Fire Department, where her father was a longtime captain on Engine 103 who “helped Chicagoans for many years in their time of need,” she wrote.
“As his daughter, I’m asking if Chicagoans could now help me in my time of need by sharing my story in the hope of finding a living kidney donor.”
Asking for help like this is certainly not easy for Vetrovec, a retired critical care nurse who has crocheted shawls for nursing home residents since 2007 and, along with her husband, volunteers at Loaves and Fishes food pantry, their church and at Monarch Landing, the retirement community where they live.
“I am so used to helping people my whole life,” she told me. “This is definitely out of my comfort zone.”
But Vetrovec is well aware of the potential her plea can have, and not just for her.
Even though a matching kidney would be ideal, a direct match is not necessary because the National Kidney Registry allows kidneys to be donated on behalf of other recipients. Potential donors are everywhere. And as Vetrovec stated in her letter to all those Chicago fire stations, even if you can’t donate a kidney, please share her story.
I am happy to do so … in memory of my little brother who was so private about his struggles.
Too private.
Who knows what a difference it would have made had he too reached out of his comfort zone in time of need.
dcrosby@tribpub.com