A Neat Story

This story is about my friends daughter and son. It was in the Standard Examiner, and I just had to share it.

Sister gives kidney, is crowned pageant winner
RUTH MALANStandard-Examiner correspondent

FRUIT HEIGHTS -- There was no doubt in Mallory Wahlstrom's mind that she should be the one to donate a kidney to her older brother, Andy Wahlstrom.

On Aug. 7, doctors performed the transplant. Eight days later, the 20-year-old Mallory was crowned Miss Kaysville-Fruit Heights.

Her platform for the pageant? The importance of organ donation.

Now a sign welcoming the "Kidney Kids" home hangs on the front door of the Wahlstrom home. It has been less than two weeks since the siblings underwent surgery, but they are both active and doing amazingly well.

"It has been a long year for me, but it has a good ending," said Andy, a 30-year-old marathon runner and Davis High world and U.S. history teacher.

In January of this year, his kidneys began to fail. Then in April, they did fail.
"It happened so slowly I forgot what it felt like to feel normal," Andy said.

Eventually he began kidney dialysis, which he describes as "a way to keep people in end stage kidney failure alive. It is not a way of living; life expectancy is cut in half."
For four hours every other day, he was attached to the dialysis machine. The family knew Andy needed to have a kidney transplant.

"Norm and I wanted to be matches," said Andy's mother, Margaret. "We were broken-hearted we couldn't."

Norm has the wrong blood type and Margaret is diabetic.

Although Andy has six siblings, including an older brother with the same blood type, Mallory felt strongly that she must be the donor. She was attending college in Arizona at the time.

Her prayer

"It was hard for me to be away," said Mallory, so she began doing research on renal failure and kidney transplants. Then she prayed about her brother and became determined to donate a kidney.

"I prayed about it for months. I knew I was going to be the donor, I didn't know my blood type or anything," Mallory said. "My dad didn't want me to be tested. He thought my older brother should be. I was the last in line. I wanted him to take me seriously."

So Mallory went to Ogden Regional Medical Center, where her dad is a pathologist, and had her blood typed.

There are 12 antigens in the blood. If six of the main ones match, doctors consider it a perfect match. Mallory and Andy matched in all 12, said Margaret.

"The doctor said he had never seen it before," Mallory said. "I knew they would tell me I was a match, but I was a perfect match, so I was really excited.

"I walked into my dad's office to tell him I had the right type. It took a while to get him on board."

As soon as she got the results she called Andy, who was getting dialysis at the time. Both began crying after hearing the good news.

"I am blessed to have a sister notice my sickness and want to help," Andy said.

The pageant
As Mallory was beginning her path towards donating a kidney, her sister, Mary Ann, suggested she compete in the Miss Kaysville-Fruit Heights scholarship pageant.
"I had never put much thought into it, but I went to the orientation meeting to appease my sister," Mallory said. "After one workshop I was sold -- it was so much fun."

But her hopes of being in the pageant were almost dashed when the surgery was performed just a week before the pageant.

Andy woke up after the surgery feeling like a changed man. "I woke up in ICU and I already felt better. It is like I am alive again," Andy said.

But Mallory's experience wasn't quite the same. There were complications and a nest of tiny blood vessels were accidentally cut. After the laproscopic surgery came an open surgery and more to recover from. Everything seemed to go wrong. Her airway collapsed.

"When a girl from the pageant came to see me in ICU on Sunday, I told her there was no way I could do it," Mallory said. "I have never experienced such pain, but it was such a small price to pay."

Mallory and her brother shared a hospital room after the procedure.
"One night I couldn't sleep and I was nauseated and afraid to throw up," said Mallory. But she stumbled to the sink and began to vomit. "Andy got out of bed and I could hear him pulling the IV cart. He put his arms around me with a pillow in front of me and held me. He was so weak. ... He was taking care of me."

Her platform
On Thursday night Mallory was still throwing up. Friday morning, she felt she could eat something and keep it down, so she went to the pageant dress rehearsal.
"She wanted to do it to promote her platform," said Andy.

During the competition, Mallory tried to stand up straight and not show the pain she was in. She had practiced her talent number on the harp at home and felt she could do it on stage, but having the weight of the harp against her body was more difficult than she had anticipated. In spite of it, she won the talent trophy along with interview, evening wear, platform and Miss Congeniality.

At the age of 16, Mallory had marked "undecided" on the organ donor question on her driver's license application. "It freaked me out," she said. Now she knows the importance of organ donation and wants to teach others about it.

"It is not just marking 'yes' on your license. More people need to realize the need is so great for living donors," she said, adding that a living kidney has a life expectancy that is twice as long as a cadaver kidney. "The biggest reason people don't become donors is education. There is an option for living donors."

Mallory is working with Intermountain Donor Services to educate people on transplants. Her first official appearance as Miss Kaysville-Fruit Heights will be this weekend, where she will help at a fundraiser for a child who needs a kidney transplant.

This week Andy is getting his classroom ready for the beginning of school, although he will need to wear a mask in the classroom because of his weakened immune system.

"I never thought my position could make a difference. I never saw this in my future," Mallory said.