BEAVER — Paul Bralkowski has the scars to show how much his family loves him.
On one side of his abdomen, there’s a scar from the kidney he received from his wife, Faith, in 2005 after being diagnosed with IgA nephropathy, an autoimmune disease. On the opposite side, a fresher wound, is from the kidney he received in April.
Bralkowski had been diagnosed with BK virus last year, a virus that transplant recipients risk contracting, that caused his first donor kidney to fail. He began doing dialysis treatments three times a week for over a year.
"They suck a lot of water out of you. You're lightheaded a lot of times. You just can't get up off of dialysis and go do your normal thing. You're beat. I (had) to come home at 8 o'clock and basically eat dinner and almost want to go to bed,” said Bralkowski, 62, of Beaver.
He did the math in his head; he spent the equivalent of about 32 days on dialysis over the course of a year.
All three of his children were willing to donate to him after his donor kidney no longer worked, but it was his daughter, Sarah Keller, who insisted she do it. But she learned that she wasn't a direct match to him.
It was still a Father’s Day gift like no other. She was able to become a donor in the National Kidney Registry's paired donation program. A kidney donor and recipient can enroll in a national search to find a kidney that's the best possible match. And by donating her kidney, he becomes a priority for a transplant.
"There's 120,000 people who are waiting for kidneys," he said. "... The average wait in Pittsburgh is four years for a cadaver kidney. She's basically, in a way, saving a lot of people by doing this."
She said she was initially disappointed when she found out she couldn’t donate directly to her father, describing him as “Mr. Fix It” and “the best dad there is.”
“I wasn't a direct match because my mom gave him a kidney, so he already had antibodies built up against my DNA, I guess,” Keller said.
But through being a part of the national paired exchange registry, it allowed for her father to have a closer match and to continue the chain of helping others in need. A donor and recipient register together with the hopes of finding the best matches for everyone involved, scanning through thousands of pairs that ensure the best possible match.
As of Tuesday, there were 234 active donors in the National Kidney Registry, and they have facilitated 2,737 transplants.
And because she's a kindergarten teacher at College Square Elementary School, Keller said she could have the summer to recover. She had her surgery done at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh on June 12.
"I didn't like my dad having to give up three days (a week) ... I wanted him to get his life back to normal,” said Keller, 30, of Monaca.
Bralkowski received a male kidney from Illinois, and Keller’s kidney went to a man in Georgia.
And because Bralkowski’s kidney is a better match than last time, there are fewer anti-rejection medications he has to take. He noticed the difference right away.
“You automatically feel like you're Superman again,” he said.
“It would've been really nice to say… she's helping me out directly,” he added. “But the big picture of it is the person we found that needs her kidney is a direct match, not a loose match or a really close match. It's a direct match, which is amazing. The guy there has been waiting for years too.”