Jackson man who needs kidney finds tissue match in cousin

Over the holidays, Annette Hormann wrote letters to both sides of the family. It was a second request with a greater sense of urgency: "Jim still needs a kidney. I would really like our two sons to have their father here longer, which seems highly unlikely in the present moment."

The letter apparently tugged on someone's heart strings -- a 19-year-old cousin has come forward to donate a kidney. Now, if all goes according to plan, Hormann will undergo transplant surgery in March that will grant his wife's wish.

"I'm nervously happy," Annette Hormann said Tuesday. "I'm nervous because now we've got this surgery, which brings the risk of losing the transplant because of infection, rejection, all kinds of stuff. But I'm happy because it offers us hope, a chance for survival."

Jim Hormann, who suffers from a rare kidney disease known as IgA Nephropathy, has been on a donor waiting list for two years. But the wait can grow long -- the average is 528 days. Hormann is among 87,000 Americans waiting for organ transplants.

So it was good news that a cousin who lives near Memphis, who has the same blood type as Hormann, decided to be tested to see whether their kidneys matched. The word came earlier this week that Cory Hormann is a tissue-factor match.

Jim Hormann, 33, was told while he was undergoing dialysis, which works as his kidneys to purify blood of waste and impurities. Hormann spends about 15 hours a week undergoing dialysis.

"Annette called me and one of the nurses told me," Hormann said. "I really tried not to get too excited. There's still quite a bit of testing to be done. But he's 19, and I'm hopeful that everything's going to go OK."

Hormann said the additional testing results should be back within the next week and a half.

Cory Hormann couldn't be reached by telephone, but Jim Hormann said the two aren't really that close.

"But I've learned that he's very intelligent, involved in church and apparently very caring and compassionate," Hormann said. "I think he just had empathy. He maybe could relate to having a brother needing a kidney. He's met my kids, too. It amazes me too that he can be 19 and that mature and selfless."

X-rays, blood work, scans

Mary Ellen Anstey is the pretransplant coordinator for Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, where the surgery will take place. She said that original tests must show compatible blood and the cross match has to be negative. That means that the blood will mix and one will not react negatively to the other.

"Those are the two main factors," she said. "Those can make or break a transplant."

The next round of work involves X-rays, additional blood work and a CT scan of the kidney. There's also 3-D imaging of the kidney to study the actual anatomy.

"If that's all OK, we'll schedule a surgery day," she said. "Success rates are great. Most of our patients have a high 90 percentile rate."

The surgery takes about four hours. The donor can usually leave the hospital in three to four days, she said, while the recipient is in the hospital for several weeks.

Meanwhile, the Hormanns are preparing for the surgery.

"It's a balancing act," Annette Hormann said. "But kidneys only last so long, so we'll probably be needing another kidney. He's so young, he may need two or three kidney transplants in his lifetime. There is no cure with kidney patients."

Jim Hormann said he can't wait to get back to work, more for his mental health than financial well-being. He hopes to be back 10 weeks after the surgery.

But he'll never forget the lessons of facing his own demise.

"What I learned is that life can get real simple," he said. "I learned what's real important, and that's family."

smoyers@semissourian.com

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