‘Nothing to it’

Yell County woman donates kidney to stranger

Tracy Tullos holds a notebook full of information about her Sept. 1 kidney donation. The humorous cover, suggested by a doctor friend, has printed on it: “Yes, I’m an organ donor. Who wouldn’t want a part of this? Just KIDNEYING!” The 53-year-old Centerville woman was what doctors call an altruistic, or anonymous, donor. According to the National Kidney Foundation, 12 people die every day waiting for a kidney.
Tracy Tullos holds a notebook full of information about her Sept. 1 kidney donation. The humorous cover, suggested by a doctor friend, has printed on it: “Yes, I’m an organ donor. Who wouldn’t want a part of this? Just KIDNEYING!” The 53-year-old Centerville woman was what doctors call an altruistic, or anonymous, donor. According to the National Kidney Foundation, 12 people die every day waiting for a kidney.

Tracy Tullos had for years thought she’d like to donate a kidney to someone, and she finally got the chance Sept. 1.

She has no idea who that someone is.

“I don’t want to know. I don’t want to own either the success or failure. If I knew it wasn’t a success, that would be devastating, ” said the 53-year-old Centerville woman, just 12 days out of surgery in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Tullos, who works as a psychotherapist at the Veterans Administration community-

based outpatient clinic in Russellville, said she saw on Facebook that an Arkansas man needed a kidney.

He was “really desperate,” Tullos said.

She had an aunt who had undergone a kidney transplant 20 years ago, but other than that connection, she just had a strong desire to help someone. “I’ve thought about it for years and years,” she said.

She started the donation process in early June in the Tulsa, Oklahoma, hospital where the recipient was being treated, but she wasn’t a match for that person. “I knew I wasn’t going to be a match,” Tullos said, smiling. “I just knew.”

The transplant team was encouraged by her test results, though, and she kept going.

“It is a very stringent and comprehensive panel of tests and, all along, they [doctors] didn’t meet any issues. One of the best things about this whole experience is that I found out I’m very healthy,” she said.

Because Tullos works in a medical clinic, she sent blood samples from there. She made only two trips to St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa — in June and July. By late July, the transplant team had found a match for her.

The transplants at the Tulsa hospital are done the first Thursday of each month, so when Tullos was given the go-ahead to donate, it was too late for August so she asked to be signed up for September.

“I’m at a place in my life where I have the time; I have the resources and the support,” she said.

Tullos said her husband, Tim, and her sister, Mary Baxley of Louisiana, “tag-teamed my care.” Tullos said their 24-year-old son, Patrick, whom she didn’t tell until the last minute, has been in her corner, too.

She said she didn’t tell a lot of people, because she didn’t want to hear negative comments about her decision, such as “What if your child needs a kidney?” That’s one she heard.

Tullos said she never doubted her decision, though.

“I had so much confidence in my surgeon, I never had a second thought. It never occurred me to be worried,” Tullos said, adding that her husband was a nervous wreck, however.

The laproscopic procedure to remove her left kidney took six hours, and the recipient’s procedure took seven hours, she said.

Tullos said she set up a “secret” Facebook page so her husband could easily update close friends and family without a flurry of texts.

The Tulsa hospital encouraged her to meet the recipient, but Tullos declined. The patient coordinator went to great effort to keep the recipient’s relatives and Tullos’ family from meeting, and Tullos recovered in a different wing of the hospital than the recipient.

Although Tullos doesn’t know the race, sex or age of the recipient, doctors told her initially “there were three really good candidates,” she said.

One medical professional did tell Tullos’ husband that when the kidney was placed in the recipient, “it pinked up right away.”

“That’s all I need to know,” Tullos said. “I just want to think rainbows and butterflies.”

Tullos’ procedure was on a Thursday; she was released on Saturday. Although she was “really sore” the day after the procedure, Tullos said the whole process has been easy from beginning to end. “I haven’t taken any pain medication,” she said.

“I had the prayers of so many people, and I think it helped with recovery.”

She felt so good that on the way home from Oklahoma, she and her sister, who was driving her home, stopped in Alma to do Christmas shopping.

“I was in scrubs. … I was hanging onto a cart; I don’t think my husband knows I did that,” Tullos said.

Tullos’ husband had to leave to work in Louisiana. Although he retired four years ago from Entergy as a senior reactor operator, he still does contract work, she said.

Not only were the surgery and recuperation a breeze, she hasn’t paid a single bill — it’s free for donors, Tullos pointed out. She also said Arkansas gives a $10,000 tax credit to donors, as well as 30 days of donor leave, so she doesn’t have to use her sick days. She will go back to Tulsa for follow-ups at six months, one year and two years.

A native of south Louisiana, Tullos and her family moved to Centerville eight months after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. She was working in a hospital in New Orleans and was required to shelter there when the hurricane hit. Their home received minimal damage — a purple-martin birdhouse had flown off its perch and punctured her roof, and the upstairs flooded — but they repaired it and sold the house four months later. Her husband told her, “I know where we can go.” He had done work at the power plant in Russellville and throughout the United States.

“He loved the people [in Russellville],” she said. “We moved and didn’t know a soul, and we are very happy here.”

Her goal is to get more people to learn about organ donations. “I think everybody should do it,” she said.

Tullos said people can ask their primary care physicians about it or contact a donation center.

“My recovery has been so simple and so easy, I would like to try to demonstrate to everybody there’s nothing to it. The recovery doesn’t have to be horrific. If you have the support of family, friends and your employer, do it. Other than missing work, it should not be a burden to anybody.

“I kind of forget about it, to tell you the truth,” she said, laughing.

But someone out there doesn’t.

Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.

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