Smith Island kidney patient waiting on new 'gift of life'
Baltimore Sun| Timothy B. Wheeler
Photo: Joan Corbin of Smith Island sits in a room in her home where she does peritoneal kidney dialysis. The bags on the right are fluids that will be infused into her body today. (Barbara Haddock Taylor, Baltimore Sun / August 21, 2012)
Growing number of kidney transplants must be repeated
Joan Corbin's day is governed by the humming box in the alcove off her living room. For nearly an hour in the afternoon and nine hours at night, the Smith Island resident must tether herself to a suitcase-sized dialysis machine to get rid of the waste building up in her body.
A healthy person's kidneys would perform that vital chore. But Corbin's gave out long ago, after being damaged by infections in her youth. She got a new kidney from her older brother 13 years ago at the University of Maryland Medical Center, which restored her health for a time. But the replacement faltered and then failed last year, putting the 44-year-old in the hospital for a week, back on dialysis and hoping against hope for another kidney.
"People think once you're transplanted it will last forever," said Corbin wryly. "Actually, the time [my doctors] told me, it's eight to 10 years. So I've done really well."
But she's not doing that well now. There's no one else in her immediate family able to give her another kidney, so she got on the waiting list for a new one nearly two years ago. She's been waiting for a match from a dying donor or, better yet, from an unrelated living one.
A healthy person's kidneys would perform that vital chore. But Corbin's gave out long ago, after being damaged by infections in her youth. She got a new kidney from her older brother 13 years ago at the University of Maryland Medical Center, which restored her health for a time. But the replacement faltered and then failed last year, putting the 44-year-old in the hospital for a week, back on dialysis and hoping against hope for another kidney.
"People think once you're transplanted it will last forever," said Corbin wryly. "Actually, the time [my doctors] told me, it's eight to 10 years. So I've done really well."
But she's not doing that well now. There's no one else in her immediate family able to give her another kidney, so she got on the waiting list for a new one nearly two years ago. She's been waiting for a match from a dying donor or, better yet, from an unrelated living one.
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