DOVER — Kyle McKinney of Dover and Les Shockley of Danville have met only once, but they have something in common: They both need kidney transplants.
McKinney, a 33-year-old former truck driver, has been on the waiting list for a kidney for three years. Shockley, a 50-year-old former foreman at Wayne Farms, needs to raise $10,000 to get on the transplant list.
McKinney, who is married and has two daughters, said he was diagnosed with kidney disease when he was 15.
“I had to have a physical done for sports, and my parents did foster care, and you had to have a physical for that,” he said. He had blood and high levels of protein in his urine, he said. A specialist in Little Rock told him he has IgA nephropathy, also called Berger’s disease. It’s a kidney disorder in which antibodies called IgA build up in kidney tissue, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
“It settled in my kidneys and shut them down,” McKinney said. He was 23 years old.
He was lucky the first time.
“My mom gave me a kidney, and they said it would last seven to 10 years, and it lasted seven years,” he said. His mother, Becky McKinney, lives in Hector. “I did everything I wanted to do — normal life, worked normal jobs. I drove trucks for over 10 years and can’t do that now that I’m on hemodialysis,” he said.
Kyle said he is working through the Arkansas Rehabilitation Center to find a part-time job where he doesn’t get fired for getting off from work for dialysis.
When he was 30, his kidneys shut down again, and he started dialysis. However, when that stopped being effective, he switched to hemodialysis, which he now undergoes five days a week at home. He was dating Paige Garner, originally from Dardanelle, when he went through the first transplant. Now the couple are married and have two daughters, Emmarie, 8, and Kyleigh, 6.
Paige McKinney said she trained for six weeks to be her husband’s dialysis technician. She works two jobs, one at Bost in Russellville and one as a member of the janitorial staff at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville. She is also taking classes at Tech to finish her bachelor’s degree.
Kyle was primarily an oilfield truck driver in Arkansas and Oklahoma, and he was an over-the-road truck driver for a couple of years.
He is on the transplant list through the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Medical Center in Little Rock and St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He said finding a kidney is a challenge because he’s already had one transplant.
“The list is national, but different hospitals do different things,” he said. “In Oklahoma, the center does different programs than Arkansas.
“My antibodies are really high since I’ve already had a transplant. We’re trying to find [a kidney] my body won’t reject,”
Kyle could use a kidney either from a cadaver or from a living donor. Waiting has become the norm.
“You don’t even think about it half the time. You kind of have a backpack ready to go for when they do call,” he said.
According to Living Kidneys Donors Network, to be a living donor, an individual is usually from 18 to 60 years old, must be physically fit, in good health and free from high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, kidney disease and heart disease. Routine tests are performed to determine not only the potential donor’s level of physical and mental health, but also his or her compatibility with the transplant patient.
“We can’t pay for a kidney — but we can pay a donor’s expense of travel, hotel stay — a lot of our potential donors are coming from out of state,” Paige said. Also, she said donors in Arkansas can receive a tax credit of up to $10,000, and state employees get 30 days paid leave for solid-organ donation.
“They recommend we have $10,000 to $15,000 raised” prior to a transplant, Paige said. That’s primarily for the medication.
However, working two jobs and going to school doesn’t give her time to organize bake sales or other fundraisers, she said. The couple also try to keep life as normal as possible for their daughters, who play sports.
Paige designed a T-shirt that is for sale through July 31, and it is available at www.booster.com/kidney_4_klm. A GoFundMe account is set up at www.gofundme.com/kidney_4_klm.
Kyle had surgery last week for problems with his fistula, which doctors created by connecting a vein to an artery as an access for dialysis.
“It was stealing blood from the lower part of my arm and hand; my muscles in my arm and hand weren’t getting enough oxygen supply. It was so painful. I don’t even know how to describe it,” he said. Doctors rerouted it, Kyle said.
Paige said her husband is “incredibly lucky” that he has insurance through her job at Tech, as well as Medicare. Still, there are bills and needs that insurance doesn’t cover, and she is trying to save money for the transplant.
She said their hopes were raised just a few weeks after he was on the transplant list in 2013. A donor died, and the McKinneys were called to the UAMS Medical Center.
At the end of a 12-hour wait, they were told the kidney wasn’t a good match.
“That was a big blow,” she said.
“There are lots of people on the transplant list,” Kyle said. ‘There are lots of people who need kidneys, and there are not very many people volunteering for donors.”
Paige said more than 100,000 people in the U.S. need a kidney. “Arkansas right now has right under 300,” she said.
Shockley said he has a potential donor — his brother, Floyd, has agreed to give him a kidney. However, Shockley said he can’t get on a transplant list until he raises $10,000. A fund is set up at helphopelive.org/campaign/6374. The anti-rejection medication can cost $1,000 a month or more, said his wife, Lori.
Shockley said he has been a diabetic since he was in his 20s, and that affected his kidney function beginning about 10 years ago. He has been on dialysis since February 2013.
“It’s just been complicated,” he said. Shockley undergoes peritoneal dialysis for 8 1/2 hours each night, his wife said. His declining health forced him to go on disability, he said, and Medicaid is his only insurance.Shockley said he has “good days and bad days,” and he can’t hunt or fish like he formerly did.
Lori Shockley said the only fundraiser that has been held for her husband was a bake sale, which raised about $1,000. Other fundraisers are being discussed, but nothing is planned, she said.
Waiting is hard, but both men said it will be worth it if they can get a chance at more normal lives.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansas
online.com.