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GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (AP) — Four hours at a time.
Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
For the past 10 years.
For 28-year-old Chris Garcia of Grand Junction, that's the commitment of regular dialysis treatments that offer him some semblance of a normal life.
Because he must constantly be near health care clinics and medicine, most of the outdoor activities that other Coloradans take for granted like camping, backpacking, road trips, sailing away on a cruise — really, travel of any kind — have always been out of the question.
"I honestly don't know that I've felt what it's like to feel healthy in my entire life," Garcia smiled sadly, flanked at a kitchen table by his sister and mom recently.
Despite his young age, Garcia's eyes look tired and a bit bloodshot, one indication of the problems his kidneys have wracked on his body, a fight he's battled for the past two decades.
If everything goes accordingly, the next chapter of Garcia's life looks much rosier.
For years, Garcia's sisters, Analisa Garcia, 26, and Katie Henson, 30, have wanted to donate one of their kidneys to their brother. Neither sister is a good match.
However, through a program that allows people to donate living organs through a network of literal strangers, Chris Garcia is set to receive a new kidney. Analisa will donate a kidney, but her organ won't go to her brother.
After years of waiting and enduring multiple close calls after being registered on a list through the program, Living Donor Paired Exchange, the siblings learned a couple weeks ago they are set for surgery on Sept. 24 at a Denver hospital.
"I can keep doing what I'm doing, but the fact that I get the opportunity, I'm not going to turn it down," Analisa said. "I'm not only saving my brother, I'm saving two other people."
Here's how it should work:
Analisa will have a kidney removed that will be flown to a recipient in Michigan. Another person in Michigan is slated to donate a kidney, which will be flown to Georgia. That kidney will be transplanted into a recipient in Georgia.
A donor in Georgia will provide a kidney for Chris. All Chris knows of his kidney donor is that she's a woman in her mid-30s. Donors and recipients aren't revealed before surgeries occur, but there are opportunities to reach out after the procedures are done, the siblings said. Of course, donors can change their minds at any time, but most people in the program likely are just as motivated to give their respective loved ones a better quality of life, they said.
The two feel lucky that matches were made in their case. They've been enrolled in the Living Donor Paired Exchange since 2010 and received six false starts — a briefly encouraging phone call that a network of kidney donations may work out. Each time, the siblings had their blood tested and underwent a spate of procedures.
"I can't tell you how much blood they've taken out of me," Analisa said, exasperated.
Yet both of them know alternatives to this program are much more elusive and, without an opportunity to swap a kidney with a stranger, Chris might never receive a new kidney.
According to the Alliance for Paired Donation, another agency that connects willing donors with recipients, more than 88,000 people currently are on a wait list to receive a kidney in the U.S. Of those waiting, a dozen people die each day because donors aren't available.
For as long as he can remember, Garcia said he's never felt healthy since contracting a strep infection as an 8-year-old. That segued into a disease called Membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis, more commonly called MPGN, which attacks the filtering capacity of the kidneys.
Chris Garcia already has had one kidney transplant, but his body has since rejected it. Years ago, his sister, Katie, had been chosen as a donor and the two were slated for surgery, but it was canceled at the last minute, Chris said. Because his first donated kidney was rejected by his body, his options for a second kidney donation are more stringent and Katie's kidney is no longer considered a good match.
Analisa, who jumped at the chance to donate a kidney to benefit her brother, said she is thrilled to be able to help out.
"What am I going to do with two kidneys?" she quipped. "I'm mostly more excited to see what he does with the rest of his life. He literally gets a break from the life that he's known."
Donor officials have told the siblings that Analisa should expect to feel pretty rough after surgery. After all, she's having an organ removed that she's lived with her whole life. Chris, on the other hand, who has been living with damaged kidneys and has never known what being healthy feels like, should feel exponentially better.
Both siblings will spend up to a week recovering in a hospital, and then are expected to recover for up to six weeks in a nearby hotel, in the event of complications.
Analisa is a certified nursing assistant and cares for two foster children. Chris works as a server at Buffalo Wild Wings.
To prepare for the surgeries, the siblings have had to keep their health in check. For Analisa, that meant losing 20 pounds. She exercises five times a week and watches what she eats. Donors must keep their body mass index under 30, she said.
"It's extremely easy when you have a good enough reason," she said. "I don't want to lose an opportunity just because I was overweight."
While the Grand Junction siblings are helping each other, and through the network of organ donation changing others' lives, they look no further than their late father for inspiration.
Raymond Garcia, who had diabetes and himself was a on a waiting list for a new kidney, died on his 50th birthday, April 28.
An advocate for organ donation, his organs helped give life or improve the quality of life of between 75 and 100 people, the family said.
His eyes went to an 88-year-old woman who can now see. His heart valves now are helping others breathe in a new day.
"You got to live a life of giving, not just personal giving," said Carla Garcia, the siblings' mother.
Carla said her husband would give until it hurt, often writing a check out for people in need when the family didn't have that much to give.
"I know that those values are ones he instilled in our kids," she said.
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Information from: The Daily Sentinel, http://www.gjsentinel.com
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