The miracle on W. 11th Street
Published: May 22, 2006
“Norfleet” appears on her birth certificate, but she prefers “Punkin.”
That’s what Beaufort County native Punkin Tanner tells people when she introduces herself. And, according to her husband, Fritz — also a nickname — everyone obliges her.
Her family and friends, even the staff at Duke University Hospital, call her by her chosen name.
“They all do love Punkin,” Fritz Tanner said.
When the hospital staff got the phone call that Punkin’s life had a chance of being prolonged, they all did a little dance, he added.
Three years ago the small-framed, big-hearted Punkin was told she might have five years to live. Her kidneys had failed, and a dialysis machine was keeping her alive. She needed another kidney, but her children, Fritz, cousins — all were no match.
“My mom wanted to give me her 93-year-old kidney so bad,” Punkin Tanner said. “I wish she were still here so I could tell her, ‘I got my kidney.’”
The bypass surgery was performed last month, on Palm Sunday. Rather than trading out her bad kidneys for a good one, Tanner explained, the surgeons simply put the donated organ in right next to the others.
“So I’ve got three kidneys in me now!”
Tanner, who is 67, had hopes before her surgery of two more good years. Today, she said, she could be looking at 20 more. Some patients who have received new organs have lived well into their 80s, she said.
“I’m just thankful for each day. It’s a miracle. I feel like my life is a miracle.”
Her husband would agree.
“She has a renewed life,” Fritz Tanner said. “This is a second chance.”
Just months before receiving the call that a transplant match had been found, the Tanners moved from their 13-acre farm to a home in town. Her West 11th Street house is one story with no steps, which is exactly what the doctor ordered post-surgery.
“Everything lined up the way it was supposed to be,” Fritz Tanner said with a grin.
Now Punkin Tanner is on the long road to recovery. Mostly on bed rest, she is able to walk around and moderately exercise. It will be another six months before her body recovers from the invasive procedure. But already she’s made plans for what she wants to do with the rest of her recently extended life.
“I want to do whatever I can to increase awareness about organ donors, so that others might live,” she said.
“If anybody can do that, she can,” her husband chimed in.
“I want to get on my feet good,” added Punkin, “and then put my time and energy into my church and into Carolina Donor.”
Carolina Donor is a network of transplant centers and hospitals that work to promote public education on donor services as well as coordinating the entire donation process. According to its Web site, the organization covers 6.1 million people in 79 counties in North Carolina and parts of Virginia.
The Tanners have a nurse and a nurse’s aide with Beaufort County Home Health Services, a subsidiary of Beaufort County Hospital, who come by to take care of Punkin and test her vital signs during the week.
They’ve also taught Fritz how to dress the open wound from her surgery and how to change the packing — twice a day.
After Punkin Tanner’s surgery, one end of the incision in her stomach did not heal and became infected. She was sent back to the hospital, and another operation was performed to clean out the problem. That left her with a hole in her side about three inches long, an inch and a half wide and an inch deep, said her husband.
She has to return to Duke for blood work and lab work every week for the next six months. And, she said, she will always be on rejection pills and steroids. In all, she takes 49 pills per day.
“Because the donor kidney is a foreign object in her body, her immune system automatically will attack it,” Fritz Tanner explained. Some of the pills are anti-suppressants to subdue her immune system and stop rejection of the new kidney. At the same time, though, the medication also makes her highly susceptible to infections.
“But swallowing some pills to get along fine — that’s OK with me,” Punkin Tanner said.
In six months the hospital will contact the donor’s family to see if they would like to meet the recipient of the organ.
“I need that six months to work out all that I want to say,” Punkin said.
The Tanners lost a daughter when she was 18.
“If this person was young, I know the parents are in deep grief,” she said. “But there’s a live organ inside of me, and the doctors said it was the strongest kidney they’ve ever transplanted.”
If you enjoyed this good news Subscribe to Good News Blog
Share this
To share this simply copy and paste one of the below URL's: