Happy Kidneyversary to Me: Celebrating A Decade of Death Defiance

Beewee and Me, Just Out of Kidney Surgery 

Ten years. I can hardly wrap my mind –– or my body –– around it. It's almost unbelievable.  

It's my transplantiversary.

On November 18, 2011, a decade ago today, my life changed forever. I was lying in a bed at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, drifting in and out of anesthesia and thinking about a 6-year-old girl I didn't know and had never met, and how her parents' unbelievably selfless act might add some overtime to my game of life here on Earth.

Three years earlier, to my great surprise, I was diagnosed with Stage IV kidney failure. They say that at Stage V you should start checking your insurance policies and consulting morticians, so all in all Stage IV wasn't so bad. 

But once your kidneys start heading south, they won't see the Mason-Dixon Line again. I was going to need a transplant, sooner than later. And prior to that I probably would have to go on dialysis.

Here's the point where I can't understand why everybody doesn't believe in God. When I received my dire diagnosis I was living alone in Detroit, divorced and downsized out of a high-paying job, unable to afford COBRA insurance and barely holding on to my rental house. This is generally what's known as rock bottom.

Then, on an online dating site I was canceling the next day, I met this indescribably wonderful woman named Karen. She lived two states away in Champaign, Ill., so I knew there was little chance of ever meeting her, much less launching a relationship. But we had tons in common, eventually began talking and/or texting daily, and before I knew it I was on a plane to central Illinois to hold her in my arms. She knew everything that was going on with me health-wise and never batted an eye. 

A year later we were married.

Wait, it gets even better. I moved out of Michigan for the first time in my life and relocated to Champaign so that Karen – better known today on social media as BeeWee, abbreviation for "Best Wife Ever" – and I could be together. She works for the University of Illinois, and I am firmly convinced that the main reason the State of Illinois is in such constant financial peril is because the health insurance for its state employees is so phenomenal. I had barely set foot in the state as the spouse of an employee, and it was like, "Oh, you need a kidney transplant? Hundreds of thousands of dollars? No problem! Welcome to the Land of Lincoln."

Kidney Crusading at a Local Hospital

For more than a year I was placed on peritoneal (pair-it-on-NEE-uhl) dialysis, the gentler, less invasive form of assisting your kidneys I have since championed for renal patients old and new. Then, after a few false alarms, we finally received THE CALL: a kidney had been found for me from a deceased donor, and it appeared to be an ideal match. How fast can you get to St. Louis?

How fast can this car go?

As I was getting prepped for surgery, I remember the nurses must have broken every HIPAA regulation in the manual, so eager were they to tell me about their donor. "Do you know whose kidney you're getting?" they kept asking. Uh, no, I didn't, but apparently I was the only one.

The story was all over the news in St. Lou, and one nurse called it up online to show me: a 6-year-old girl, apparently in perfect health, suffered a brain aneurysm on the playground one sunny morning and died on the spot. And her parents, in the midst of their sudden, devastating grief, made the decision to donate her organs to others. 

As my transplant surgeon suggested to me, I was receiving "the perfect kidney:" it was a flawless blood and tissue match, and at age six her experimenting with smoking, alcohol and drugs was probably minimal.

I named my kidney Cheyenne, in her honor. She's a teenager now, and sometimes she can get a little rebellious, but for the most part she has seemed completely content and productive in her second home. I take tacrolimus (tack-crow-LEE-muss), a leading anti-rejection drug, twice a day, every day, exactly 12 hours apart since 2011 to try to keep her happy. (Anyone who knows my commitment to punctuality can imagine how challenging that has been.)

I have never met or communicated with her parents, by their choice. However, I may try to reach out to them once again on this 10th anniversary. I have always wanted to hug them verbally, if not physically, to let them know what their gift has meant to me. Many times I think about all the things I would not have accomplished or experienced had I not been here for the last decade:

BeeWee and Me, at Our Son's Wedding

Deepening my love, appreciation and admiration of my Karen, who really is the BeeWee.

The experience of being a father, as we shepherded Karen's brother, Jordan, through his high school years.

The two books I have ghostwritten, and the fascinating one I'm working on now.

My advocacy for kidney transplantation and peritoneal dialysis (I'll never forget the man who gave a knockoff Jimmy Choo – or was it Jimmie Chew – handbag for my wife as thanks for recommending peritoneal dialysis, which gave him more freedom to sell purses out of his trunk), which led to me serving two years as the ESRD (End-Stage Renal Disease, or kidney failure) Patient Representative for the State of Illinois. The whole freakin' state. 

That being one of the factors leading to my being named a Distinguished Alum by my Alma Mater, Hope College in Holland, Mich., in 2019. As the first McFarlin to attend college, how I wish my parents had been alive to see that. 

Uniting hundreds of couples in my role as a wedding officiant (under the business name Wholly Matrimony 4U), including the marriage of my son Jordan and his fiancée Graycie last summer.

Emceeing my 50th high school reunion.

Finding an amazing church, Mattis Avenue Free Methodist, that has deepened my love of God and my daily walk with his son, Jesus.

And having more time to spend with you, my readers and friends who mean so much to me, and writing this blog post to you today.

Cheers to us all. God bless. Here's to another 10 years!

It May Not Be the Bee's Knees, But I Hope My Knee Will 'Bees' Better

This is about how my knee feels now. Every day.

I am scheduled to have left knee replacement surgery this Wednesday (April 14, 2021) at Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, Illinois. A few random thoughts:

• This will be my first major operation since my kidney transplant at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis on November 18, 2011. (Great Googly-Moogly! That was 10 years ago! I just realized that. Suppose I should think about doing some sort of anniversary tribute later this year.) And to tell you the truth, I really don't know how I feel about this week's procedure.

• My surgery initially was scheduled for March 2020, about a week before the world as we knew it flipped upside down and corona became way more than the name of an imported beer. My joint replacement was canceled due to a sudden, urgent need for hospital beds. Then it was aborted a second time in November when the virus spiked again. As a result, I have been in relentless, agonizing leg pain for more than a year, Biofreeze and IcyHot my constant sidekicks.

I have not been a happy cowboy.

As another result, I find myself approaching this week's operation with a feeling of...well, really, no feeling at all. I'm not excited or anxious or nervous or relieved. I was bitter for quite some time over the cancellations and the knowledge that my suffering continued through no fault of my own. But when you've been in pain day after day for months, it sadly becomes part of your normal existence. You learn to live with it. If you can call that living.

(Many deep thanks to Danny McFarlin –– absolutely no relation, unless his family once owned mine –– the physician's assistant who kept me reasonably sane between surgical disappointments with a series of cortisone injections in my knee. He really gave me a leg up.

My Surgeon: 'No-Pain Bane?'

(Too much?))

And while I'm told the pain will be worse after the procedure, at least initially, at this point it's all relative. Besides, fool me twice, shame on everybody. When I'm actually on the gurney with an IV in my arm and being wheeled into the OR, then I'll know it's really going to happen. Until then, I'm keeping my emotions on lockdown.

• The orthopedic surgeon performing my procedure (a total left knee arthroplasty) is one Dr. Robert Bane, who by all accounts is the Dr. Kildare of east central Illinois. I am not exaggerating when I tell you every single person who's asked about my operation has broken into a broad, knowing smile when I answer, "Doctor Bane," followed immediately by, "He's the best."

OH! I misspoke. One woman at my church replied, "I tried to get Dr. Bane, but I couldn't get onto his calendar. (Pause.) He's the best, you know."

Even other doctors praise his holy name, which is rare indeed. Last week my cardiologist broke into a broad smile when Bane's name came up. "You're in good hands," he reassured. Ironically, I have yet to meet him: we conversed briefly via Zoom many months ago, but due to COVID I will not meet the man in person who's going to cut into my flesh until I'm on the table preparing for the anesthesia. I'm in the hands of a near-total stranger. He is, quite literally, the Bane of my existence.

I am absolutely positive I am not the first one to come up with that.

• I know times change over the course of a decade, but I don't remember ever jumping through as many pre-surgical hoops as I have for this procedure. I have had a complete pre-op physical, new X-rays, bone density screening, blood pressure monitoring, a consultation with my cardiologist. Bathe with a special soap the night before and the day of surgery. Sleep on clean sheets. Stop taking vitamins and all supplements. And, of course, the obligatory COVID-19 test. 

Good news: here you can take the COVID test without having to leave your car. Bad news: It entails pulling into a line as long as the ones giving out free food these days and enduring what seems like a drawn-out, confusing and disorganized process. Very good news: The Carle system requires patients to simply run a Q-Tip around both nostrils, rather than jamming a stick past the eye and into the brain. Extremely good news: I tested negative, so we can continue to communicate.

• I suddenly came to realize one reason so many pre-op tests are required is because I'm not as young as my brain keeps telling me I am. I was blown away by the number of contemporaries who responded to my Facebook announcement of impending knee replacement with comments like, "Had mine done years ago," "Had both of mine done" or "You won't regret it." One friend even sent me a book of healing techniques after surgeries! Good Lord – my friends are getting so OLD! So thankful I'm retaining my youth.

My knee, without a scar. For posterity.

• I am also required to watch a video on knee replacement surgery provided by the hospital. Now, I expected a slick, well-produced instructional piece; after all, Carle owns about half the property around these parts and as a foundation pays no taxes. Instead I got a droning, hour-plus YouTube lecture apparently pulled directly from a long-ago seminar. What a disappointment! I have drifted off every time I've tried to watch it. The clock is ticking. 

• I was grateful that my pastor, Herb Coates, specifically mentioned me and my upcoming surgery during his congregational prayer last Sunday. Prayers are always welcomed. However, since I was manning the Welcome Desk next to the front door after the service, I was an easy target for every parishioner who wanted to inquire about the operation –– which seemed like every parishioner. I swear, I think some of them seemed to care more about my surgery than I do. Is that a good thing?

• I am also so, so grateful for the advancements in medical science. Knee replacements are commonplace now but practically unheard of in America until the 1970s. I think of my Aunt Carrie in Palmetto, Ga., God rest her soul, who made her living by cleaning the local movie theater. In those days you were lucky to have any job, so she worked on her hands and knees, picking up candy and all manner of filth brooms couldn't reach, well into her 80s. What unbearable pain she, and so many other laborers, must have endured! 

I'll think of you Wednesday, Auntie. Just before the lights go out.

Taking My Best Shot: Pondering the COVID Vaccine Controversy

I recently received my second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Free at last! Free at last! Thank drugs alrighty, I'm free at last! Can I get a "Whoop! Whoop!" 

They even give you a sticker!

I know some in our society would prefer to give me a "Nope! Nope!" Obviously, I prefer to disagree.

I never dreamed that being old, Black, diabetic and having my immune system permanently compromised so as to preserve an adopted kidney could ever be positive attributes. But hey! Whatever plunged the needle into my arm faster was OK by me.

In a sense, receiving the second shot does feel kind of liberating, like getting out of jail. (A feeling which, sadly, I have experienced.) We all have been imprisoned by this coronavirus one way or another, either by being homebound or shackled financially. The vaccines offer us at least the promise of a return to full freedom and normalcy somewhere down the line.

Herd immunity? Of course I herd of immunity. I just don't know when it will arrive.

Injection numero dos also made me feel a bit special, to be honest, as if I had completed a long and valued quest. And if you think that sounds like overstatement, watch the nightly news any evening. You'll see thousands of Americans standing in line for vaccines, asking when they can get their vaccines, wishing they could receive a vaccine and wondering aloud what will happen after their vaccines are administered.

They're the shots heard 'round the country.

Upon arriving at the hotel ballroom that serves as my city's main COVID injection site and completing the necessary paperwork, I was escorted to a very pleasant older woman who was serving as a public health volunteer. Before executing my second shot, she placed a sheet in front of me listing possible side effects.

"After I got my second shot," she sweetly informed, "I had a fever the next day. Then I got chills, and a pounding headache that just would not go away. My injection site swelled up and hurt ––"

I stopped her there. "Are you trying to scare me out of here?" I asked, laughing. Indeed, as I spoke an electronic banner on the wall behind her listed all those "Common Side Effects," adding fatigue to the list.

A Shot in the Arm for America.

Didn't matter. It was going to take more than that to deter me. I had waited too long, worried too much in public settings. I took the shot, sat quietly for the 15 minutes they ask you to stay to make sure there are no immediate allergic reactions, then went home. Easy peasy.

The next day I experienced very mild soreness at the injection site in my left arm. That was it. The sum total of my side effects. Now the CDC is reporting that, for reasons they haven't yet determined, women are 80 percent more susceptible to intense reactions following their second shots than men. 

Sorry, ladies. 

I think I reacted stronger to the response over my initial Moderna shot. I posted the momentous event on Facebook the day after and while reaction was mixed and mostly positive, every Black person who commented on my decision was concerned at best, critical at worst. Even my own sister commented, "Jim, you actually took that shot? OMG, why? I don't know, l'il Bro, but I'm praying everything comes out all right. Love you. Please keep me updated on how you're doing."

Dang, Jacqui, I'm doing great so far. It's not like I'm on a ventilator! In fact, that's precisely what I'm trying to avoid. But that type of immediately negative response from African Americans is not uncommon, from everything I'm reading and hearing. And I think it has absolutely no connection to that infamous "Tuskegee Study" of 1932, the government-sponsored research in which 399 Black men who had syphilis, but were not informed, were recruited to study the effects of the disease. Very few people still breathing remember that abomination firsthand. 

However, these things are true. This just in: Nobody I know enjoys getting stuck with needles. As a diabetic I've injected myself virtually every day for 11 years; I'm still waiting to like it. Naysayers complain the vaccines were developed far too quickly, from too many different sources not to be suspect, while all the time Mr. "It's-No-Worse-Than-the-Flu-It-Will-Pass-Over-by-Spring" was patting himself on the back instead of protecting the nation. 

Who can we trust? Black folks demand. While we disparage, African Americans are three times more likely to die of coronavirus than Caucasians. Oh, my. 

My dear friend Karen Dumas, former chief communications officer for two Detroit mayors and one of the wisest people I know, called out of the blue as I was writing this to say hello. I casually asked if she had received her shots and to my great surprise, she said no. Nor does she intend to, Karen added, and she has rebuffed all efforts from friends and civic leaders to use her bully pulpit as a high-profile Black Motor Citizen to encourage others to roll up their sleeves.

Oh, so you're making a sociopolitical statement against the historic abuse and exploitation of African Americans as medical guinea pigs in this country, right? Once again, to my shock, she said no.

"It's because nobody knows what's in any of them," she explained. "I watched an interview with Dr. Fauci where he said everybody should get the vaccine, then at the end said it won't absolutely prevent you from getting COVID and may not prevent transmission of the virus. So what good does it serve?

The Moderna Missive.

"Two vaccines need two doses. Another needs only one. Two have to be kept at the North Pole, the other one you can store on your back porch. Can you mix the vaccines? What happens if you do? There's just too much going on too fast, so I'm staying away. I'm good."

Actually, I can't mount a convincing argument against any of those points –– except perhaps that we don't know what's in the flu or measles vaccines either, but the majority of us take those injections routinely without a second thought. 

And speaking of Detroit mayors, how about the current officeholder, one Mike Duggan, seemingly going out of his way to make my adopted hometown look foolish and cast himself as the village idiot? I have met Duggan on several occasions and I know he's smarter than to publicly declare he's refusing to allow the new one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine to cross the city limits. But that's what he said, because "Moderna and Pfizer are the best, and I am going to do everything I can to make sure the residents of the City of Detroit get the best."

Really? Really? Give me a break. Regions of our country are literally begging for additional vaccine doses and Duggan is turning them away? If he's truly serious about giving Detroiters the very best, how about making sure all the streetlights work at night? Mowing the vacant lots? Paving the potholes on Woodward Avenue? Sheesh.

Meanwhile, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll, more than one in five Americans (22%) say they will get the vaccine only "if required for work, school, or other activities," or definitely will not get it at all. Hey, their lives, their choice. It is a free country, after all.

Here's how I look at it: The development of multiple COVID-19 vaccines in less than a year could be just as much a testament to modern scientific brilliance in the face of a potential disaster than some slapdash attempt to appease our government and a frightened public. To date, more than half a million Americans in the past 12 months said something to the effect of, "I'm not worried about this coronavirus crap; they're blowing it way out of proportion." Those people today are either six feet underground, scattered across some body of water or stacked in the back of a refrigerated semi. 

We've all got to die of something. I'm just determined that for me, it will not be this.

Besides, I've been entrusted with a precious gift, a donated kidney that has served me excellently for more than a decade. It's my responsibility to protect it with all methods at my disposal. True, we don't know what effect the vaccines will have longterm, but we know what COVID-19 is doing right now. And while we do have free will in this nation it is the UNITED States of America, contrary to what our politics have shown us lately. If most of the country takes the vaccine but a significant portion does not, we may be no farther ahead than if we had no vaccines at all.

Even though I'm now fully inoculated, I continue to wear a mask in public and adhere to social distancing, more for my fellow citizens than for myself. There is so much light at the end of our tunnel now, a return to normalcy is right around the corner. Take the shots. Wear the mask. Let's all cross the finish line together. Above ground.