Bill Rosales had struggled for months to ask for help by the time he got a call from a high school friend. The Chicago firefighter desperately needed a kidney transplant to treat a rare genetic disorder.
He hadn’t spoken much in several years to the friend, Jason Fuggiti, who also happens to be a firefighter in the southwest suburbs. Rosales assumed he was simply checking in on his health, so he was floored by Fuggiti’s announcement.
“He goes, ‘Well, I just left Loyola hospital … and I got a kidney for you whenever you need it,” Rosales, 47, of Dunning, said.
“I was so shocked,” he continued. “I had no idea he even knew I needed a kidney. I had no idea he’d already started the process to get tested and got cleared. I was saved by my old high school buddy.”
Although Rosales initially kept his diagnosis quiet, when his fellow firefighters learned about his search for a donor, they posted on social media and hung up posters in firehouses across the city. Rosales, who received the successful transplant last month after years of declining health, was “overwhelmed” by the support.
In fact, Megan Parker, Loyola Medicine’s transplant coordinator, said there was such a “large influx” at one point that it was impossible to get through all the applications. Ultimately, at least 30 people expressed interest in donating, much more than the three people that’s typically considered high, Parker said. Another friend even decided to donate his kidney to a stranger when he wasn’t a match.
For Fuggiti, it was an easy decision to go through with the donation, in large part because of the “selfless mentality” and “deeper understanding of life and death” he’s developed through his nearly 20-year career as a Bolingbrook firefighter. The 46-year-old also said firefighters get to know each other on a deeply personal level.
“When it comes down to it, we’re willing to risk our lives for people we don’t know on a regular basis,” he said. “So when it comes to helping somebody that’s that close to you, to me it feels like it’s a no-brainer.”
‘My body was betraying me’
It was around 3 a.m. when Rosales got called out to a fire raging in Little Village.
As Rosales worked to stop the blaze from spreading, the roof of a home collapsed. A section of the chimney fell, hitting Rosales as he stood on a gangway, and leaving him with torn shoulder ligaments and lots of bruises.
It was while being treated for this 2019 injury that a doctor first told him his kidney levels were abnormal. Though at the time, his medical team didn’t think much of it, chalking it up to dehydration or bruising.
When a few years passed and Rosales’ kidney function still hadn’t improved, he said he needed to learn why. One specialist said his kidney looked like someone who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day, but Rosales insisted he didn’t smoke. Another was completely stumped about the cause.
“I didn’t understand how my body was betraying me like this at a fairly young age,” Rosales said.
Using a DNA sample, a doctor at Loyola Medicine determined that Rosales actually had a rare genetic kidney disorder, called autosomal dominant tubulointerstitial kidney disease. The condition causes his kidney’s tissue to become scarred and unable to do its job of filtering blood and creating urine properly, said Dr. Lucia De Gregorio, a transplant surgeon at Loyola.
When Rosales learned it was inevitable that he’d need a kidney transplant, he was startled.
“I just felt like if I just drank more water, ate better, lived a healthier lifestyle, maybe I could reverse this and change this outcome, but that was just myself being in denial,” he said.
His condition, meanwhile, continued to deteriorate as the months passed. He felt tired all the time but could barely sleep at night because he constantly had to use the bathroom. When he attended an education seminar about kidney transplants, he met others who appeared much sicker than him and thought, “My God, this is my future.”
He also learned at the Loyola seminar that the average wait time for a deceased donor kidney transplant in Illinois is about five to seven years, a statistic he found “frightening.”
“They were saying that if I had to wait the six years, I had a 40% chance of survival,” Rosales said. “And that was a very hard thing to hear because at this point I didn’t know what I was going to do.”
Rosales’ wife, Dana Rosales, said the diagnosis felt like the “end of the world” at first. She worried about caring for her husband and their 14-year-old son at the same time. She felt some comfort in having seen successful kidney transplants firsthand as a nurse, but nothing matched the relief of finding a donor.
“I look at Jason now and I’m so grateful to him,” she said. “But then in my mind, it just shows me how great my husband is. Got a lot of people that care about him.”
Posters in every firehouse
Rosales joined CFD about a decade ago after a prior career as an electrician. He said he was looking for a more rewarding job and was inspired by his firefighter father-in-law, Dennis Edwards, who told him, “If I don’t go in there and try and save those people, who’s going to do it?”
He worked in the Uptown and North Lawndale neighborhoods, but when his health went downhill, Rosales had to slow down. So he trained to become a fire investigator, where he determines the cause of blazes.
“We’re able to put arsonists away and get them off the streets,” he said. “We were able to give closure to people. We are also able to solve mysteries.”
Fuggiti, meanwhile, started out his career as an emergency medical technician before joining the Bolingbrook Fire Department in 2007, where he’s now a firefighter engineer. He’s also a father to two daughters.
One of the first people Rosales confided in about needing a kidney transplant was a lieutenant he worked with on the West Side. The first words out of his mouth, Rosales said, were “How do I get tested?”
“At that point I really couldn’t bring myself to ask anyone for help,” he said. “Being a fireman, it’s like for myself, at least, it was very hard to say, ‘I need help.’”
Even though that lieutenant didn’t end up qualifying to be a donor, Rosales said he got the ball rolling on spreading the word. Posters went in every firehouse in Chicago, he said.
When Fuggiti saw the flyer, he said he quickly signed up as a potential donor. He said he knew if their situations were reversed, Rosales would have done the same for him.
The pair met in their sophomore year of high school at Gordon Tech, now called DePaul College Prep, when Fuggiti was a new student. They bonded over music and skateboarding, and were roommates for a year after they graduated.
What makes a good donor
It was clear from the beginning that Fuggiti was committed to the process, said Parker, Loyola’s transplant coordinator. Becoming a donor involves a “thorough evaluation” that includes lab work, scans and psychological evaluations to ensure that the donor can live a “long, normal, healthy life with one kidney,” she said.
A good match comes down to compatible blood types and DNA, Parker said. Generally, she added, a living donor is better than a deceased donor because the kidney is healthier. Anyone interested in donating can fill out an application at loyola.donorscreen.org.
“One of the big things that we try to advocate is to refer your patients early for transplant evaluation before they have to go on dialysis,” she said. “Typically the recipient will do better after transplant if they’ve not had years of dialysis.”
Tom Argiris, another of Rosales’ friends, was one of the dozens who submitted an application. The 47-year-old Old Irving Park resident, who works as a carpenter, wasn’t a match for Rosales, but he decided to donate his kidney anyway — to a stranger.
“I got nothing but faith and love for God, and I know he’s gonna give it to somebody he loves,” he said.
The hardest part of his recovery late last year was that he couldn’t sneeze or laugh for the first four days, but he joked that “Thank God I’m the funniest person I know.” He said he quickly bounced back to normal and is considering donating his liver one day as well.
Argiris’ donation also gave Rosales a “voucher” through the National Kidney Registry, which would give Rosales priority for a living donor kidney if he ever needed one again.
Rosales and Fuggiti, meanwhile, had their surgeries in late March. Fuggiti developed a rare complication that led to severe abdominal pain, but both are now on the mend.
For Rosales, there was a lot of mental preparation involved. He’d never had a major surgery before, and said he had a lot of anxiety about the procedure. He also wrestled with putting his friend through the surgery. He said talking to a therapist helped.
“I have been shocked at how calm and at peace about this whole thing (Fuggiti) has been, while I’ve been a nervous wreck,” Rosales said.
Fuggiti, for his part, said he had “zero doubts.” Watching Rosales’ health improve after the transplant has made him happy, and he’s even looking forward to working on his motorcycle and possibly traveling in an RV while he’s off work for a few months.
“He had a death sentence, his kidneys were failing,” Fuggiti said. “But once all these people came out, it definitely gave him hope. It makes me feel great … I want his son to have a father.”
