‘She gave me my life’: Kidney donor, recipient are longtime friends from Fairview Heights

David Jacknewitz can finally eat steak again.

Problem is, now he doesn’t like it. It’s a long story.

Jacknewitz, a 65-year-old Fairview Heights resident who serves as Caseyville Township clerk, is recovering after having a kidney transplant in April. The kidney he got came from Judy Schmidt, 66, who also is from Fairview Heights. The two know each other well.

“Close to 40 years we’ve known each other,” Judy Schmidt said. It’s been since before she and her husband Rich were married. Rich Schmidt and Jacknewitz have been friends since childhood.

Jacknewitz’s kidney troubles started with a back injury in the 1970s. A well-known referee with dreams of officiating in the National Basketball Association, Jacknewitz slipped a disc before he could break into the league. He had surgery to fix the disc but the pain lingered. A doctor prescribed medication to handle the pain.

In 2001, another doctor said it was that medication that pretty much destroyed Jacknewitz’s kidneys. His diet was restricted —only white meats and fresh fruits and vegetables— and he was put on medication to lower his blood pressure. With failing kidneys, better to slow the flow of blood into them.

Thus Jacknewitz lived for years, staying in shape, eating right and swallowing fistfuls of pills to try to slow his kidneys’ demise.

“I was taking 20 different pills for my kidneys,” he said. “My kidneys weren’t filtering stuff out. I had gout, I had potassium problems, sodium problems, every kind of problem.”

By last summer, though, enough was enough. Exhaustion forced him to retire from a career with the St. Clair County Probation Department. Doctors at Barnes-Jewish Hospital told him it was time to think about a transplant. It was that or a lifetime of dialysis. Jacknewitz started searching for potential donors.

A handful of candidates emerged, including Schmidt. She was hesitant.

“I thought the chances of me being a match are so remote, I’ll just fill out the application to at least show David I tried,” Schmidt said.

Next came a battery of tests, the results of which showed she was a good candidate to donate. Then the Barnes doctors told her all that could go wrong with the transplant.

“That was when I thought there’s no way in the world I can do this,” Schmidt said. “But then I thought there’s no way in the world I can’t do it. I felt like I had to go through with it because I was a good candidate. One of our sayings at church is ‘Be blessed to be a blessing.’ And I’m blessed to have good health and to be able to give my kidney.”

“My doctor was the real convincing part of this whole thing. It was a scary thing and I thought my general practician would never think this was a smart idea,” Schmidt, who is a retired dietician and diabetes educator, added. “I mentioned to her I was thinking about donating a kidney and just without any hesitation she said, ‘You’d be a fantastic candidate.’ And that’s all I needed to hear. That took the fear out.”

Under the knife

Live organ donors get to pick the day of the transplant surgery. Schmidt chose April 7, hoping to get the transplant in before a planned Alaskan cruise. She didn’t know April 7 would have been the 100th birthday of Jacknewitz’s father, well-known tavern owner “Madhouse” Joe.

Barnes-Jewish doctors removed Schmidt’s kidney laparoscopically, inserting two small tools into her side to disconnect the organ before pulling it out through a small incision in her belly.

In Jacknewitz’s case, surgeons placed the kidney in his front, below his belly button. He technically has three kidneys. The old ones are still inside, idle.

Schmidt’s kidney made an immediate difference.

“(The doctor) could see how good a kidney it was. He said he couldn’t wait to put it in,” Jacknewitz said. “He said once he got everything hooked up, my face went from gray to pink. My whole body started changing colors.”

Recovery was a cinch for Schmidt. The operation was done on a Thursday morning and by Saturday she was home. She didn’t even come close to taking her entire prescription of pain pills, and she likened post-op discomfort to “a tummy ache.”

By two weeks after the surgery, she felt normal. A simple follow-up with her doctor in a couple months is all she has to do.

Jacknewitz, on the other hand, was heavily medicated following the transplant. He said he doesn’t remember anything for two days after the surgery. He was home by that Sunday.

With a healthy kidney, his blood pressure strategy has reversed. Instead of keeping it low to limit blood flow to the bad kidneys, doctors want to keep it up to flood the good one.

And while he’s on different medications now that are adjusted based on the results of constant blood tests, he doesn’t have to restrict his diet anymore.

So not long after the surgery, he went out for a steak.

“I didn’t like it. I’m not used to eating it,” Jacknewitz said. “But I dove into that baked potato.”

‘I pray every day for Judy’

The unwritten rule says veterans of transplants have to give their new organ a name. Jacknewitz gave his new kidney two.

“My mother’s name was Lucille and she gave me my first life. Now Judy gave me my second life. Lucille Judith,” Jacknewitz said. “I pray every day for Judy. What Judy did — I don’t have a million dollars, but if I did I couldn’t give it to her. It wouldn’t be enough.”

“I want to get a couple things out,” he added. “First, to thank all the people who prayed for us. Second, to say how easy it is to save lives. And that would be if people just get their driver’s licenses switched to being an organ donor.”

According to the National Kidney Foundation, there were 121,678 people waiting for organ transplants in the U.S. at the beginning of this year. The median wait for a kidney transplant was three and a half years.

Availability of organs is a barrier to helping more people get transplants. According to the foundation, an average of 13 people die each day waiting for a kidney. In 2014, there were 3,668 people who became too sick to get a new kidney and 4,761 people died while waiting.

Jacknewitz urged healthy people who might be afraid to donate to consider it. Schmidt is the perfect example: In the time since the transplant, she’s been on an Alaskan cruise and has traveled with family to Minnesota and Indianapolis without any problems.

“More people would do this if they knew what they could do afterward,” Jacknewitz said. “And I can’t say enough about Judy Schmidt. She gave me my life.”

“Take one day at a time, take one step at a time,” Schmidt said. “If you’re a match you should think about donating.”

This story was originally published July 30, 2016 at 8:10 AM with the headline "‘She gave me my life’: Kidney donor, recipient are longtime friends from Fairview Heights."