Onalaska man receives the gift of life from friend

LaCrosse Tribune | Alison Geyer
Photo: Onalaska defense lawyer and municipal court judge John Brinckman is getting a new kidney this month, donated by his best friend's wife, Jeanne Anthony Brandt. Brinckman has been waiting 2.5 years for a donor.
John Brinckman is used to working 16-hour days and 60-hour workweeks. The Onalaska defense lawyer and municipal court judge once took up to 70 cases at a time, had his own office and his own staff, but now he works just three hours a week on a handful of felonies and traffic cases.

“I love my work, and I believe in it,” said the 62-year-old over a sausage, egg and cheese biscuit at Maggie’s Restaurant on Main St. in Onalaska, where the servers know him by name. “I was a workaholic, but I’ve had to cut back.”

Brinckman’s kidneys are failing, a condition he attributes to the high stress of his legal profession coupled with hypertension and diabetes.

When he first got the news of his diagnosis 2½ years ago, his organs were at 30 percent functionality; now he’s down to about 12 percent and has been on the borderline for dialysis about half a year.

“The worst part is the uncertainty,” said Brinckman, who has been waiting for a kidney donor for the past 2½ years. “I can’t make any long term plans.”
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"You have the power to SAVE lives." 
To register as a donor in California: 
www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org | www.doneVIDAcalifornia.org
Outside California:
www.organdonor.gov | www.donatelife.net

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