Wright Center aids family’s journey to kidney transplants

SCRANTON — Christmas 2023 brought D.J. Hockman the greatest gift he could have imagined — a second chance at life. Just days after the holiday, two and a half years after being diagnosed with stage 5 kidney failure, he received the miraculous news that a suitable kidney had been found for him.

His surgery was set: January 2024 at Penn Medicine in Philadelphia.

This life-changing donation was made possible by D.J.’s wife, Tiffany Akers-Hockman. The South Abington Township couple had undergone extensive medical evaluations and spent a year losing weight and improving their health with the help of doctors from The Wright Center in Clarks Summit and Jermyn. Their journey led to a paired donation: Tiffany’s kidney went to a recipient in California, while D.J. received a kidney from a donor in Minnesota.

“The news couldn’t have come at a better time. I was getting sicker and sicker,” D.J. recalled. “In November 2023, I had been in the hospital several times because of infections, fluid overload, and a whole bunch of different issues.”

Nearly 104,000 people across the United States need an organ transplant, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), a private, nonprofit organization that manages the nation’s organ transplant system under contract with the federal government. Of those, more than 96,000 need a kidney, according to UNOS. Most will wait between three to five years for a kidney donor.

The U.S. Health Resources & Services Administration hosts an annual campaign to raise awareness about the importance of organ donation and to sign up more people as organ, eye and tissue donors. The 2024 DoNation Challenge runs from Aug. 1 through Sept. 30. For information, visit www.organdonor.gov/professionals/workplace/donation.

Like many, the Hockmans hadn’t given much thought to organ and tissue donation until D.J.’s kidneys began failing in 2021, despite Tiffany having registered as an organ donor when she received her driver’s license. Doctors were unable to pinpoint a cause for his kidney failure, though D.J. said it could have been a combination of Type 2 diabetes and COVID-19.

“They ran a bunch of tests, biopsies, and they couldn’t find a specific reason why,” he said. “The doctors said I was going to need to go on dialysis, and in March 2022, they scheduled the surgery to put the dialysis catheter in.”

D.J.’s exhaustion from working full time and undergoing nine hours of dialysis each night made it difficult for the family — which includes the couple’s four sons, ages 24, 21, 18, and 13 — to do anything together. They relocated to Northeast Pennsylvania from Virginia in 2021 and frequently traveled back to visit family. However, these trips became less frequent, partly due to D.J.’s nightly dialysis, which made it challenging to travel except for essential medical appointments in Northeast Pennsylvania and Philadelphia.

“I watched my husband go from an active guy to someone who couldn’t take more than a few steps without becoming winded,” Tiffany said. “He would come home after work and just crash. He had no energy.”

To find a donor, the couple began sharing D.J.’s story on social media in hopes of finding a match.

“We really hadn’t told anyone up to that point,” Tiffany said. “A lot of people saw it and said they were going to sign up to be a donor, but it’s a long process to become one and there’s a lot of health restrictions.”

In fact, Tiffany wanted to donate one of her kidneys to her husband, but her body mass index initially was too high, according to her doctors. The emotional toll was overwhelming.

“There were a lot of emotions running through my head,” she said. “My husband is sick. We just moved here and don’t know anyone. I have the kids, and one has medical issues. It was a lot.”

During a routine checkup at The Wright Center for Community Health in Clarks Summit, Tiffany shared her concerns with Dr. William Dempsey, who offered her a compassionate ear.

“For the first time in a long time, I felt like a doctor really listened to me,” she said. “He said, ‘Any one of those things would be enough to break anyone. But here you are, surviving.’”

Dr. Dempsey referred Tiffany to Dr. Jumee Barooah, a board-certified lifestyle medicine physician at The Wright Center. Along with a team of specialists, Dr. Barooah guided Tiffany through a weight-loss journey that not only qualified her to donate but also significantly improved her overall health. While Dr. Dempsey has had other patients needing weight loss assistance to qualify for organ transplants or joint replacements, few have sought to transform their health to help a loved one in this way. Nevertheless, his response was consistent.

“There’s a lot of barriers to getting these kinds of surgeries, which can be frustrating even though there are very good reasons,” Dr. Dempsey said. “It’s our job as family doctors to connect them to as many resources as possible to help them get healthier.”

Dr. Barooah and a care team consisting of a nutritionist, second-year Internal Medicine resident Dr. Sandra Rabat, and more, worked with Tiffany for months, coaching and counseling her as she lost weight and developed healthier habits.

“It wasn’t just about donating my kidney,” Tiffany said. “I realized that if God forbid, something were to happen to him, I need to be healthy to take care of our boys.”

After about a year of hard work, the couple was approved to proceed with the kidney donation. However, doctors informed them that Tiffany and D.J. were only a “medium match.” Considering their young ages — D.J. was 45 and Tiffany 42 — they opted for a paired donation to ensure the best possible match for D.J.

Just before Christmas 2023, Tiffany received the call that a recipient for her kidney had been found. A few days later, D.J. learned a match had been found for him. Doctors scheduled the surgeries for Jan. 23, 2024, at Penn Medicine.

After weeks of pre-screenings and tests, the surgery proceeded as planned. Tiffany went first in the early morning, and her kidney was flown across the country to a waiting recipient in California. D.J.’s surgery followed that evening after the donor kidney from Minnesota arrived in Philadelphia.

After a brief recovery period in the hospital, the couple moved into the Clyde F. Barker Penn Transplant House, where they spent about a month recovering and meeting other transplant patients, many of whom became friends.

Months later, the Hockmans are healing well, though both have plenty of medical appointments to monitor their health. D.J. has some atrophy in his legs from dialysis and inactivity as he waited for the transplant. He also takes anti-rejection medications and must monitor his blood sugar levels and other diabetes symptoms. The couple remains committed to the healthier lifestyle habits they developed from The Wright Center’s lifestyle medicine care team, including regular evening walks at local parks.

“It took me a lot longer to feel better, compared to her,” D.J. said. “I’ll be monitored for the rest of my life, but because it came from a living donor, I could easily get 20-plus years from this kidney. I can’t even say how grateful I am to Tiffany and the other donor.”

Dr. Dempsey expressed his joy at the successful results, saying, “That outcome is as good as it gets for a family doctor like me. Taking care of families is what we do here at The Wright Center.”

Although they were given little information about the other two patients involved in their paired donation, Tiffany said she sometimes thinks about the person in California who received her kidney.

“How many times have we seen someone sick and wished we could do something,” she asked, adding that she wished more people would explore living organ donation to help reduce the long waiting lists. “It took 10 days for me to recover from surgery, but for the recipient, a donated kidney means a lifetime of not being on dialysis and living their life.

“If I could grow another kidney, I’d absolutely donate it again,” she said.

Each day, 20 people in the United States die while waiting for a life-saving organ transplant. Every 10 minutes, another person’s name is added to the national transplant waiting list. To learn more about organ donation, including how living kidney donors could help eliminate up to 83% of the national transplant waiting list, visit DonateLifePa.org.