A Washington, D.C.-based television producer turned
the cameras on herself this past spring, allowing her
colleagues to film her much-needed kidney transplant at
Johns Hopkins.
Sharon Sullivan's story, A Stranger's Gift,
will air at 8 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 19, as part of the
Discovery Health Channel's Super Surgery series. The
hourlong documentary chronicles Sullivan's long-term
struggle with kidney disease, culminating in a new chance
at life offered by Hopkins' incompatible kidney transplant
programs.
At birth, one of Sullivan's kidneys was not connected
to her ureter and was rotting inside her abdomen. Once the
kidney was removed, she lived a fairly healthy life until
age 19, when her remaining kidney developed polycystic
kidney disease, a condition that causes large cysts to grow
on the organ, threatening to shut it down. By age 25, she
badly needed a transplant.
At the time, her father donated a kidney and several
family members donated blood for transfusions. Fifteen
years later, while on a television shoot, she was bitten by
a brown recluse spider. The insect's venom poisoned the
donated kidney and threatened to shut down her immune
system.
Between the previous transplant, a pregnancy and the
family's blood that had been used for transfusions,
Sullivan developed antibodies that would attack and
instantly reject just about any donated kidney. She became
a patient of the Hopkins incompatible kidney transplant
programs in 2001, and desperate to find a donor, she and
her parents talked to friends, co-workers and strangers.
More than 60 people underwent blood tests to see if they
could donate, but none was an acceptable match. Meanwhile,
she spent several hours a week undergoing dialysis to keep
her alive.
Finally, her parents received a call from Bryan
Boyden, an Alamogordo, N.M., horse farmer who had seen a
flier about Sharon that her father had posted at a Kmart
store. Boyden turned out to be the best possible match.
Sullivan was admitted to Hopkins for surgery on June
3.
Robert A. Montgomery, chief of transplant and director
of the incompatible kidney transplant programs, said that
because of the severity of Sullivan's illness, the
operation was one of the riskiest that he and his
colleagues had ever performed.
"We've sort of become the 'Supreme Court' of kidney
transplantation,' " Montgomery says during the documentary
airing this week. "People come here when they're near the
end of the line."
For more information Hopkins' incompatible kidney
transplant programs, call 410-614-6074 or go to
www.incompatiblekidneys.org.
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