The special friendship of Maria Jaimes and Sandy Barnes is bound by the awesome elements of birth and death. That friendship will be celebrated with the upcoming baptism of Maria`s eight-month-old son Ricky, whose birth was made possible by the death of Sandy`s son Richie.
”If it were not for Sandy and Richie I would not be here and neither would Ricky,” Maria said in her Rockford home as she cradled her young son in her arms.
And later, in Green Bay, where she lives and works as a Wisconsin state trooper, Sandy, 38, said, ”I just love that baby. On our last visit I couldn`t put him down.”
The recollection made Sandy smile, and it erased the lines of stress that had shifted across her face as she recounted the morning that her son Richie left the house in typical 6th grade euphoria and never returned.
It all began on March 8, 1988 when Maria, then 22 and a factory employee, suffered a stroke and was rushed to a Rockford hospital. There she underwent surgery to relieve pressure on her brain caused by bleeding; she was in a coma for several days while her family maintained a vigil.
When she finally regained consciousness and started treatment and therapy to regain use of her right side, Maria`s liver began to fail from the effects of hepatitis.
”It just kept getting worse until I passed out,” Maria said.
On April 10, she was flown to the University of Wisconsin Hospital at Madison where her condition improved briefly but then quickly deteriorated until she lost consciousness again more than a week later and all of her major organs began to fail. Doctors said she would die in a matter of days if she did not receive a new liver.
Maria went to the top of the hospital`s list of those needing a liver transplant, and her worried family could only pray that a liver would become available.
Meanwhile, in Green Bay on the morning of April 26, Sandy helped Richie, her only child, get ready for school. His friend Eric Martin stopped by and the two of them headed off on their bicycles.
A mile or so away, Richie`s bike tipped just as a school bus was passing. He fell and his head hit a rear wheel, inflicting a brain stem injury so severe that he stopped breathing.
An ambulance rushed him to St. Vincent Hospital in Green Bay and he was placed on life-support systems.
”Of course I could not believe it and I could not accept it,” Sandy said.
Years before, Sandy lost a child when her 10-month-old baby died suddenly. ”After going through that I just never thought that anything would ever happen to Richie,” she said.
Doctors told her that they did not think Richie could recover and Sandy interpreted that to mean that he would survive but with a handicap.
However, with the help of her sister Marilyn Nelson, a nurse, Sandy began to accept the brutal truth: her son was not going to live.
Sandy`s minister, Dennis Schatt of St. John`s Lutheran Church, mentioned that if Richie did not survive, maybe organ donation should be considered.
Some time prior to the accident, Richie had watched his mother sign the back of her driver`s license to identify her as a potential organ donor. He asked Sandy about it and when she explained, he said it was ”gross” but seemed like a good idea. He asked his mother if she would sign for him so that he could be a donor when he got his driver`s license.
Sandy remembered some of that and left her son`s side long enough to go to the nurses` station to tell them to go ahead with preliminary tests for organ donation. Then she sat by her son through the night as the last remnants of his brain activity ceased. ”I talked to him and tried to say goodbye,”
she said.
Richie was removed from life-support systems the following morning but, as expected, there was no brain activity to start his breathing and he was declared dead April 27.
Having been previously alerted, the organ procurement team from the University of Wisconsin Hospital flew immediately to Green Bay. There, team leader Bob Hoffman sought out Sandy and expressed his sympathy for her loss and appreciation for deciding to donate Richie`s organs.
”He will help others live,” Hoffman told her.
Richie`s kidneys, liver, cornea and heart valves were removed-his heart could not be used for transplant because of medication he had been given to sustain his blood pressure-and Hoffman and his team returned to Madison.
Within hours of their arrival, surgeons successfully transplanted Richie`s kidneys-one into a 49-year-old man and the other into a 50-year-old man; and another surgical team headed by Dr. Munci Kalayoglu, director of the UW liver transplant program, transplanted Richie`s liver into the desperately ill Maria.
The surgery that normally takes 4 to 6 hours took 12 hours. But when it finally ended, Maria`s condition began to improve almost immediately.
It took Maria some time to understand that she had received a liver transplant, she said, and through a long period of recovery she tried to adjust to the fact that someone had died to save her life.
”That was very hard,” she said.
Kalayoglu said Maria`s miraculous recovery was due in part to the very healthy liver she received. ”The fact that it started working immediately saved her life and made her recovery possible,” he said.
Kalayoglu also said that at the time, he expected that Maria could recover and live a normal life, including pregnancy.
In the meantime, Sandy went through the ordeal of burying her son.
”There were over 300 people at the wake,” she said. ”Richie was a neat kid and everyone liked him.”
And then the long grieving began.
Thinking it might help occupy her mind, Sandy tried to go back to work a week after Richie`s death but ended up in the hospital emergency room with bronchial spasms.
”It was like everyone else had forgotten about Richie`s death and I was left with it,” Sandy said. ”I got some therapy and found out that I hadn`t even resolved my first child`s death.”
Sandy was divorced from her first husband, the father of her children, in 1983, and was married to her present husband Gary in 1987.
”My family was a big help,” Sandy said, ”particularly Gary, and my sister, who has done hospice work.”
Hoffman sent word to Sandy telling her of the success of the kidney and liver transplants, and this information helped her, Sandy said. Then early in 1989, she wrote to Hoffman asking for more details and giving her permission for the release of donor identity.
Within weeks she received a ”thank you” card from Maria.
”I wanted to thank her in so many ways,” Maria said, ”but I didn`t know if she wanted to know about me, so I did not put any identification in the card.”
But Sandy did want to know about Maria and with encouragement from Hoffman, Maria telephoned Sandy a month later.
”She said she had not been able to come up with the right words to write in her card and she apologized for that,” Sandy said. ”She sounded like a very `together` young woman. I stressed that I did not want her to feel obligated to me in any way and I didn`t want to create any difficulty for her.”
Both women agreed later that there was something in that first tentative telephone call that initiated a special bond.
Maria wrote to Sandy, saying how sorry she was that Richie had died, and requesting a picture of him, which Sandy sent. Then the two of them arranged to meet at a symposium in Madison where the Organ Procurement Program was marking its first 100 liver transplants.
”The timing was ironic,” Sandy said, ”April 28, exactly a year after Richie`s death.”
And the meeting was obviously an emotional one for both women.
”I saw her standing with some of her family and I went up to her and asked, `Are you Maria?` and then we were hugging each other,” Sandy said.
The friendship grew from that point, with regular telephone calls, letters and an occasional visit. Maria married Augustin Jaimes in 1990, and the next year told Sandy that she was pregnant.
”I was so excited,” Sandy said. ”And then Maria suggested that I might consider myself a potential grandmother and I thought that was a good idea.” Maria gave birth to a healthy boy on Oct. 11, 1991, and with Sandy`s approval named him Ricardo, the Spanish version of Richard.
”I thought that was very nice,” Sandy said. ”They call him Ricky, which is good because I don`t think I would be comfortable with him being another Richie.
”I just can`t say what this has meant to me,” Sandy said. ”Maria is such a joy to be around and the way she has accepted us into her life is the closest I will ever get to a miracle.”
Sandy has become active in promoting organ donation. ”I speak before local groups and do everything I can,” she said. ”I think it is very important for donor families as well as the recipients.”
The need for organ donations is the overriding factor in limiting organ transplantation. Most donated organs come from younger people who die suddenly of head injuries, leaving the decision to a devastated family.
Hoffman pointed to a survey by the National Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network that showed that while 70 percent of respondents said they were in favor of organ transplant, only 36 percent claimed to be potential donors.
Early in 1992, there were 25,574 people waiting for organ transplants, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS).
A dispute rages within the transplant field on how to increase organ availability. Among the suggestions are various proposals to pay for organs, through death benefits to the family or a ”futures market” in which individuals might contract for the sale of their organs upon death. Another approach would legislate for presumed consent-prevailing now in much of Europe, in which a body becomes available for organ transplantation unless the individual has specified a desire to the contrary.
While the issue is debated at the professional level, Sandy Barnes goes quietly about the personal business of encouraging people to consider organ donation.
”If people only knew how it can help you recover from the loss of someone you love, they would make sure that they were potential donors,”
Sandy said.
”I am sure that not everyone wants a donor-recipient relationship,” she said. ”I have not heard from the recipients of Richie`s kidneys and that is OK. Some people are going to feel uncomfortable with a donor`s family and I can understand that.
”It`s a very personal thing,” Sandy said. ”For me it has been great. Richie is gone and nothing is going to bring him back. I know that, but I have this very special friend Maria, and her lovely baby, and that means a lot to me. I can`t wait for the baptism so I can hold him again.”
