Second chance: Active-duty father donates kidney

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Stephen Cadette
  • 30th Space Wing Public Affairs
VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AFPN) --  It’s evening, and the Pitman family is playing Candyland in their living room. Devin, 5, bounces from the sofa to the gameboard and pulls a card. 

“Ice cream!” the blue-eyed boy shouts, and moves his yellow pawn toward the end of the trail. 

“My turn,” his father says, leaning over the board to pull a card. In two moves, he catches up with Devin, placing his pawn side by side with his son’s. They share the same purple square.

But that’s not all they share.

Devin and his father, Tech. Sgt. Jeff Pitman of the 533rd Training Squadron here, own the same pair of kidneys. Sergeant Pitman donated his kidney to his son Sept. 14.

Devin’s condition began in the womb. Urine blocked up in his bladder and dumped into his kidneys. The stagnant urine caused infections, and his kidneys developed poorly. Only 15 percent of his right kidney and 85 percent of his left worked. They wouldn’t work for long.

Devin was 3 in May 2003 when he stopped eating. Lori, his mother, brought him to the hospital.

“He’s running a fever,” the nurse said. “Let’s just give him some Tylenol and see how he does.”

Lori insisted on the lab work even though the doctor said it wasn't time for another series of tests for Devin.

When the doctor called the Pitmans' home that evening, his voice strained as he told Sergeant Pitman about the results.

“Mr. Pitman, I don’t want you to worry,” he said, “but your son’s test results are really, really bad. His potassium levels are critical. I spent the last hour making arrangements. We need to get him to UCLA immediately.”

Devin’s life was in danger. His kidneys failed and his body was filling with toxins.

The Pitmans rushed to the Lompoc Emergency Room, where an ambulance took Lori and Devin to the University of California at Los Angeles Children’s Medical Center. Sergeant Pitman ran back home, packed up clothes and toiletries and raced to Los Angeles as he faced the dire need of a kidney transplant for his son.

“I was worried about Devin’s future,” Sergeant Pitman said. “I simply did not know of anyone who had kidney problems.”

He received the reassurance he needed when he met Devin’s roommate in the hospital, a 9-year-old girl who received a kidney donation four years earlier.

“Her mother had been living with a transplanted kidney for 18 years and had three children,” Sergeant Pitman said. “There’s this little girl whose parents have all the answers we’ve been looking for. They knew what we were going through and what we’d been through. They answered my questions and made me feel better about the whole thing.”

Devin’s kidneys recovered, but only temporarily. In the fall of 2004, doctors told Sergeant Pitman his son’s kidneys had about 12 months left before they would fail again. The Pitmans opted for preemptive surgery, to get a working kidney into their son before his two weak ones failed risking his life.

Sergeant Pitman resolved to be the kidney donor from the beginning, he said. But would the Air Force let him continue to serve with only one kidney?

He had to submit a package to the Air Force surgeon general to ask permission to donate.

“It was almost a non-issue,” he said. “Maybe because of what other people kept telling me, or just that I knew deep down that it was going to happen, I wasn’t the slightest bit concerned about it. Shortly after I sent it up, it came back approved.”

The Pitman family moved forward with the transplant. It had to happen before Devin’s kidneys failed again.

“Lots of times they wait for the kidney to fail before doing the transplant, and we didn’t want to do that,” the sergeant said.

During the five-and-a-half-hour surgery, doctors cut through Sergeant Pitman’s abdominal wall and removed his kidney -- the size of a fist. Then they cut into Devin’s tiny body, and gave him his father’s kidney.

“We were told he would be in the intensive care unit for at least five days and on day two they wanted to move him to the floor,” Sergeant Pitman said. “Nobody could ask for a better recovery.”

More than nine weeks have passed since Sergeant Pitman gave his kidney to his son. He’s back with the 533rd TRS, in his corner cubicle in the back of Bay 1.

“I’m having a little bit of trouble doing 40 sit-ups,” he said. “But I can do more push-ups than I could before the operation.”

He never even went on a physical profile after returning to work.

Since June, the Pitmans have made several trips back and forth to the UCLA Children’s Medical Center. It is the same center Devin has been going to since he was four days old.

“I know a lot of the doctors and nurses there,” Sergeant Pitman said. “I also know a lot about the kidney. I’ve taken it as a personal responsibility to know what’s going on, so if something goes wrong, I can catch it.”

Devin mirrors his father’s absorption of kidney knowledge. He pulls out a chart of the urinary system, and points at the shriveled kidneys on the paper.

“Those are bad kidneys,” said the tousle-haired boy. He points to the chart where doctors put his father’s kidney inside him and clutches the bottom of his striped T-shirt pulling it up to his collarbone, exposing his round belly. He then points at the scar worming vertically across his stomach nearly a foot long above his bellybutton.

“He has no inhibitions,” Sergeant Pitman said.

Only days after transplant surgery, Devin ran around, exploding with energy. But things aren’t completely back to normal yet. Sergeant Pitman has O blood type, and Devin has type A. Devin had to take immune suppressive drugs, weakening his immune system. It’s the only way to make sure his body doesn’t kill the transplanted kidney. After Devin’s body accepts his father’s kidney, stopping the immune suppressive drugs would not mean his immune system would ever return to normal.

Devin took his final dose of the immune suppressant Nov. 13, and the doctors lowered his steroid dosage.

The following Saturday, Devin celebrated his fifth birthday.

“He’s grown a half inch since the transplant,” his father said.

Sergeant Pitman puts Candyland away, and a new game sits on the living room floor. He and Devin sit cross-legged on the carpet, picking yellow plastic ducks from the game board. The object is to get three ducks with the same colored sticker on the bottom. Devin picks his last duck, flips it and holds it up. Devin smiles.

Sergeant Pitman smiles back.

“For some reason,” he says, “everyone wins at this game.”