Bobbi Jo Brenner

BOBBI JO BRENNER

As I write a mini-biography for Jen ’s project, I have found it a bit difficult to know what to say. There are so many things I want to say, but putting them all together is not as easy as you would think. Many have known about my story for years, and I have had tons of prayers go out to me and just as many questions asked to me about my situation. As much as I am thankful for peoples’ concern, I wonder sometimes if I am being pitied. This project is about strengths and struggles, and I want to be completely honest about the struggles, yet I don’t want people to feel sorry for me. To get the entire story, though, the pain needs to be revealed first, in order for the strength to shine though. Viktor E. Frankel, a survivor of the Holocaust, said about his suffering, “Man is not destroyed by suffering; he is destroyed by suffering without meaning.” Like all of the women in this project there is meaning to the suffering, we just don’t always see it. I want to be able to convey to the reader that Hope is available and the strength that I have is found in that Hope.

Don’t let the smile fool you. Although it is genuine, it has not always come easy. There are days when tears flow and I wonder just how much longer I will have to do dialysis. I have had two transplants; my first one was in 1991, from a woman who died from a brain tumor. I had it for four years before my body rejected it in May of 1994. I was back on dialysis for a few more months before I received a perfectly matched kidney from my younger brother. Despite the hope I had at that time to be free of dialysis, I lost it due to a blood clot. Because of all the trauma that happened to my body, I ended up on life support for a few days and once again depending on dialysis to live.

It has been almost 15 years since my last transplant, and I find myself today with the possibility of receiving my third kidney from my husband’s sister, Kristine. I am experiencing a flood of emotions as I face the approaching day that the pre-transplant treatment begins. April 26^th is when it will all start and for the following two weeks Mayo clinic doctors will try to literally wipe out my immune system, so that my body has a better chance of not rejecting Kristine’s kidney. Since my past two transplants and numerous blood transfusions over the years, my body has built up a high level of antibodies in my blood. Antibodies are the very cells that attack and reject a transplanted organ. Typically these antibodies are good for the body because they protect it from illnesses. However, they are not good to have if you are waiting for an organ transplant.

It is my first year anniversary of doing dialysis at home, and it has proven to be the best medical decision I have made in a very long time. My body is healthier and now better ready to receive a new kidney and to with stand all the medical procedures I will need to go through, before the transplant is even possible. I am scared to do it all again, knowing this time there is more risk involved and more “prep work” that needs to happen. I have spent the last year building up my body and now in less than two weeks; they will begin tearing down again. I have wrestled with whether or not I even wanted to try it again, but I cannot see myself doing dialysis for another 15 years. I don’t want to have to go trough all things procedures again, but I also don’t want to do dialysis any more, either. The doctor’s have been upfront with me that there is no guarantee that this will work. I know form experience that this is true, yet I am at this point willing to go forward with it knowing full well the risks and what it will take, but also living into the reality that it may not work. I may come home without a kidney, or not come home at all.

Day one will begin with a blood draw at 7: 30am followed by an appointment with the transplant nurse coordinator at 7:45. By 8:20 am I will have an EKG performed. From there I will have a chest x-ray done at 9:00 am. After that, at 9:30 am, I will visit with the medical review board that over sees nephrology and hypertension. At 10 o’clock I will meet with the kidney doc, Dr. J.M. Gloor. By 11:00 I will have to have a central line (a catheter) placed in a vein below my shoulder, so that they can begin the procedures to kill off my antibodies. At 1:30 pm I will have my first plasmapheresis exchange treatment, which will take another hour. From there I will receive a drug called immunoglobulin intervenes or IVIG. This will take about four hours to infuse.

Day One---Finished.

I do dialysis 5 days a week, so I can choose which days to skip as long as they are not back-to-back. Since I will skip a dialysis treatment on day one, I will need to do dialysis on day two. So, Willi and I will get up early to do the dialysis, before I head back to the clinic to do another round of the plasma exchange and IVIG. For the next seven days this will be the routine. I have to make sure I do the dialysis before the IVIG, otherwise, the dialysis treatment would filter out the drug. After day seven they will check to see if the treatments are working to destroy my antibodies. If it does work I will receive Kristine’s kidney on May 10^th. If it does not work, I will be put into a research study using a drug called Valcade. This is a drug that is used to fight the blood cancer myloma. I will need to be in Rochester for three months for this study and will receive the drug twice a week for those three months. Before and after the three-month treatment I will have a bone marrow biopsy performed to check the levels of the antibodies. I have been for warned that the treatments are just as mentally draining as they are physically.

Many look at the new kidney as my hope for a better life, but to be honest, that is not where I find my Hope. As difficult as this life has been, my struggles have opened my eyes to a bigger problem. Just like the physical body builds antibodies to protect itself from harm, the soul does a similar thing. To protect itself from pain, from getting hurt, from feeling disappointment, it builds its’ own form of protection: Soul Antibodies. I have had many questioned in my life about why suffering happens and have even been mad at God for all that I have been through. Yet, god still pursues me even in my pain, my anger, my grief and my disbelief. Though a long journey so far, I have come to a place where my heart realizes I cannot do this in my own power. I need something bigger than myself to make it. I need God. This is where I find my Hope and this is where I receive the strength to keep moving forward. The strength I have is in Him and in Him alone.

Jesus says, “My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.” Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and begun appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations with stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size- abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.

II Corinthians 12:8-10 (The Message)