This week’s show hit a few snags along the way, including missing vaccine records and a polar vortex. Which honestly seems minor considering the much more serious things that could go wrong during a surgery to remove a kidney.
It turns out everyone in the operating room needs to prove certain vaccinations took place — including any radio producers and engineers they allow in the room — which seems quite reasonable. But I had a near deal-breaker: chickenpox. Although I can prove I’m up to date on tuberculosis, measles, mumps, rubella, and everything else, I had chickenpox as a child and never got vaccinated. I had to get a doctor's note affirming my immunity.
The night before the surgery — a planned removal of a kidney from a humanitarian donor —temperatures in Madison, Wisconsin plummeted. Not just snowy temps. Not just 0 degrees outside. We're talking -29 degrees Fahrenheit. Cold enough to keep even the heartiest Midwesterners homebound, warily watching their pipes for signs of freezing.
I got an email from the transplant surgeon, Dr. Josh Mezrich, that night saying the surgery would be delayed — it was simply too cold for the kidney to be transported by plane after it was removed.
We tried again the next day, when temperatures shot up to a balmy -6 degrees. At about 6 A.M., the donor Missy Makinia was sedated. Her surgical team — to the backdrop of Mezrich’s playlist of hip hop and boisterous chatter — worked for about three hours to remove her kidney. It was packed up in an ice chest to be sent to an unknown recipient, who would have it working within their own body by later that evening. Mezrich says the kidney started working right away.
It is miraculous to me that our body does this, that a part of one person can save another person’s life. It inspired an entire hour exploring the ways our bodies can amaze — and terrify.
—Shannon