After 50 years of volunteerism to benefit kidney patients around the nation, Pine Bluff resident Bob Abbott was honored by President Donald Trump, who awarded Abbott with the President's Volunteer Service Award recently.
Abbott wasn't entirely certain, but said he believed the award was granted at the behest of the American Association of Kidney Patients, an independent advocacy group that was founded in 1969.
Abbott's interest in helping people with kidney disease, he said, got its start in 1970 when his father, Floyd Abbott, was diagnosed with kidney failure.
"My dad was 57 years old and he went to the doctor because he was having headaches and throwing up from time to time," Abbott said. "He went to the doctor and they put him in the hospital down there in Fordyce on a Friday afternoon so he could get tests run over the weekend and he wouldn't have to lose any work."
Abbott, his mother, brother, and two sisters were called in for a conference with the doctor the following Monday where they received a grim prognosis, that Floyd Abbott was suffering from kidney failure and would likely only live another three months at most.
"He said the best thing you can do is carry him home, let him get his affairs in order, and that's about all you do, try to make him comfortable," he said. "I thought, gee, I had read where they had sent a little girl from around Hot Springs down to New Orleans for an artificial kidney machine, but I didn't have no kidney trouble and didn't know nothing about kidney problems, really."
Abbott said he asked the doctor about the treatment but said the doctor didn't encourage it and said it wouldn't work.
"I messed around and had somebody give me the name of a doctor in Little Rock I could call who might could give us some thoughts about what we might do," he said.
The doctor, William J. Flanigan, then a nephrologist at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, went on to serve as medical director for the kidney transplant program at Baptist Medical Center in Little Rock until his death in 1993. Flanigan was involved in the first kidney transplants that were performed in the United States, in Boston in the 1960s.
After obtaining his father's medical records, Flanigan arranged for Abbott's father to be admitted to a Little Rock hospital that had secured a research grant to study kidney disease as soon as the hospital had an opening for the study.
"They had five people involved and they had to wait for one of them to die so that he could get in," Abbott said. "It was tough, it was real tough, but he got in within about a week and a half or so, and he was getting sicker and sicker all the time."
Abbott said his father received his first dialysis treatment and the effect, while temporary, was almost immediate.
"In just three or four hours he was feeling great," he said "He wanted to go home because he was in good shape right quick. But, that wasn't the deal, that wasn't part of it. He had to have another one, you know."
In fact, Abbott's father would need dialysis treatments regularly for years, treatments that were prohibitively expensive.
"I convinced the people there that we could afford it and we bought the first artificial kidney machine, hemodialysis, and carried it to Bearden where my mom and dad lived," he said. "We learned how to run that thing and we operated it twice a week."
Abbott said dialysis treatments quickly began to mount up expenses that his family could not handle.
"By December we were running out of money and they were sending supplies down C.O.D., and you know what that means," he said. "You got to have money to get it and I could tell we just didn't have the money, it wasn't going to work."
One of the most heartbreaking aspects of the situation, Abbott said, was that the dialysis treatments provided the desired effect, which was dramatic, and his father would be active and robust so long as the treatments continued. But, if discontinued, it would only be a short time before his blood would become contaminated with the waste that his kidneys were incapable of processing, and he would quickly begin to sicken, with death just a short time away.
"People offered to help but you know how that goes," he said. "You can do a fundraiser and get $150 but you need $1,500."
With Flanigan's help, Abbott said he testified before the Joint Budget Committee of the Arkansas General Assembly in January 1971, with the result being the creation of the Arkansas Kidney Disease Commission, of which Abbott served as a charter member.
"The first year, the funding was $90,000, the second year was $100,000 and every year after that it was supposed to be like $100,000 and we thought that would be enough to take care of pretty much everyone in Arkansas," he said. "But it wasn't. It didn't work that way and of course I could see the handwriting on the wall, that it wasn't going to work but it was better than what we had."
In 1972, Abbott began working on the development of a program that would help defray those expenses on a national level, his involvement coming about because of his proximity to an Arkansan who, at that time, was considered to be one of the most powerful people in Washington.
"Wilbur Mills was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee," Abbott said. "They needed somebody from Arkansas and our doctor in Little Rock was available and worked with the first kidney transplants in Boston."
The national legislation Abbott and Flanigan had a hand in helping to pass was an amendment to Social Security that provided financing for individuals with chronic kidney disease.
"The only reason Dr. Flanigan called on me to start with is because I was just an ordinary Arkansan," Abbott said. "I wasn't no high-falutin thing, I worked hard and was sincere about what I was doing, and I was going to do it whether I had any help from them or not."
Abbott said that Mills actually was not in favor of the legislation due to the cost, but said he eventually gave in to pressure from Gene Goff, his administrative assistant, and calls and letters that began pouring into Mills' office from Arkansas and elsewhere around the country asking for help. And the cost, Abbott said, was considerable.
"What's mind-boggling to me, we thought we could take care of everybody in the United States for $75 to $90 million," he said. "You wouldn't dream of how much the budget is today. According to the last figures I have, we spend a little less than $40 billion on dialysis alone, and we're not talking about transplants and other stuff."
Abbott laughed when looking back on his history as an advocate for kidney patients, which all started as an effort to pay for his father's medical bills -- bills that threatened to quickly overwhelm the family. Since then, he has served as a charter member of the Arkansas Kidney Disease Commission, has been involved in activities with the American Association of Kidney Patients, he has testified before state and national legislative bodies, at medical conferences, and even has a service award -- the Arkansas Kidney Disease Commission's Bob Abbott Distinguished Service Award -- named for him.
"You've got to keep in mind, I don't have kidney problems, at least not yet," he said with a chuckle. "My dad lived another 10 years, and we ran that kidney machine in Bearden for three years, and then he got a kidney transplant. They said at the time he was too old, but he did great for the next 10 years, so that was just super." When Abbott's father died, it was the result of complications from an accident and not because his transplant had failed, Abbott said.
In 2011, Abbott was even able to convince the American Association of Kidney Patients to hold its national convention in Little Rock, streaming the convention live to the world from the Clinton Library.
"I've had lots of rewards from my involvement," he said. "I was on the Kidney Commission until Asa Hutchinson came along, and I guess I gave money to the wrong person, but I served on the commission for 48 years and it's still in operation. We have one of the better kidney programs in the United States."
A longtime friend, Joy Blankenship of Pine Bluff, told the Pine Bluff Commercial that with Abbott, what you see is what you get: a man who spends his time working to make things better for others and finding solutions to problems.
"Bob is just one of those people who does things for other people and he doesn't talk about it, he just does it," Blankenship said. "He is one of those silent advocates or volunteers who does a lot in our community just to make our community better. I can't tell you all the things he does, but he does it out of his love for Pine Bluff and his love for people. I think he is truly remarkable, and obviously the nation does too because he got that award."
Blankenship, who serves as executive director of Pine Bluff Downtown Development, said that Abbott also gives a lot of his time helping to improve the city he calls home. She said he travels extensively and often will send her examples of things being done in other cities that he thinks would help improve Pine Bluff.
"He sends me pictures from other places and says, 'Look what they're doing here. This might be something we could try,' or he'll ask me 'Do you think this might work in Pine Bluff?'" she said. "He only wants things to look nice and he only wants good things for our community."
As an interview with Abbott was coming to an end, he turned his attention from the model of a kidney on his office table to his medal that he recently received, grabbing it up and saying he wanted to put it on. As he worked it over his head, he said his only regret was not being able to go to Washington, D.C., to receive it.
"I just wish I could have gone to the White House to pick this up," he said with a big laugh. "Can you just imagine? An old boy from Bearden in the White House."
