Resurrection Sister Joyce Marie Rankin keeps up a schedule few could match.

A full-time faculty member at National-Louis University in Evanston, she also teaches part-time in a special program at Resurrection High School on Chicago’s Northwest Side and serves as the volunteer coordinator for the Chicago area for the Regional Organ Bank of Illinois. And three days a week, she gets up at 3:30 a.m. to go to her dialysis sessions.

Rankin, who is awaiting a second kidney transplant, is among 4,100 patients on the organ bank’s transplant waiting list. Nationally, organ banks have nearly 71,000 patients on waiting lists. Last year, 857 patients in ROBI’s service area and 21,942 in the United States received transplants. Rankin shared her story to bring awareness to National Donor Sabbath, which is observed the weekend of Nov. 11-12.

Catholic New World: How did you find out you had kidney disease?

Sister Joyce Marie Rankin: I had a lot of problems with high blood pressure and other things, and I was only in my early 30s. When I went to see the doctor, he said, “You’re just too young to have these problems,” so we investigated further. We found out that I had polycystic kidney disease. Cysts are growths, and “poly” means they keep piling one on top of the other, both inside and outside the kidneys. It’s an inherited disease, and it was on my dad’s side of the family. He died from it at age 46, and his father died at the age of 39.

CNW: How did it affect you?

SJMR: In the beginning, it didn’t really affect me except for the high blood pressure. I was able to do all the work that I was doing. I taught at Resurrection High School, and I was working with students in the English area. I also started a program for students who were at risk for learning, whether it was learning disabilities or any other problems. I worked one-on-one or in small groups with them, and in fact I still do, as a part-time job. About 10 or 11 years ago is when the disease really manifested itself. It got so bad that I didn’t have the energy to do a lot of the things that I wanted to do, so many of my jobs were taken away from me.
It was also at this time that I began to have a lot of problems with my kidneys, so they decided that it was time to take the kidneys out. When they did, my kidneys weighed 10 pounds a piece. A normal kidney weighs one pound. I no longer have the disease, because it only affects the kidneys. My kidneys were removed in September 1991, and I had my transplant Dec. 18 that same year, shortly after my birthday. I had just turned 50.

CNW: How did you feel after the transplant?

SJMR: That transplant gave me so much energy. I went back to school to teach, and here I had only a smidgen of the job I had to begin with. One thing I always wanted to do was to go back to school myself, and so I did. I wanted to get my doctorate, so I went to National-Louis University full-time and I kept teaching at the high school part-time. The university asked me to come on as an adjunct to supervise the students who were working in the elementary schools. That was I think 1993. I got my doctorate in 1996 in educational leadership, and I was very, very excited about that. … That following September, the university asked me to go on as a full-time assistant professor.

CNW: Do you have a lot of contact with the donor family?

SJMR: Not really. I invited the transplant donor family to come to my graduation, and they all accepted and said yes, yes, they wanted to come, but then it petered out. I have not pressed them, I have not talked to them, and that’s the way they want it. I don’t want to push.

CNW: What happened to that kidney?

SJMR: About three years ago, my body began to reject that kidney. It was a slow rejection in the beginning. I got on the list for another kidney three years and three months ago, and I began dialysis again two years ago. Despite the fact that I’m on dialysis, which probably takes about 20 hours a week with driving time and getting on and off the machines, I decided I was going to keep my full-time job, my part-time job and keep doing volunteer work for the Regional Organ Bank. I’ve been doing that for the past nine years. I do my talks and do health fairs. So I keep myself busy. I have a wonderful doctor. She and I think alike, and she is very happy that I am doing all that I am doing, and she works very hard to make sure I can keep doing it.
This past January, the rejection phase took an acute turn. One of the valves leading to the kidney was leaking blood, and I had to have the whole kidney removed.

CNW: What is your prognosis for getting another transplant?

SJMR: I’m on the list at Loyola (University Medical Center) and I’m trying to get on the list in Milwaukee. My big problem now is that I’ve had one transplant, so I have a whole lot of antibodies. That reudert (Medial Center in Milwaukee), they explained that while that’s a negative, it’s also a positive. What it means is that if I get past the first matching phase, and I make it to the second group, where they do the cross-match, I’m the one who would probably go to the top of that list. But I haven’t made it into that cut for three years and three months.

CNW: Was it difficult for you to get the first transplant, knowing somebody had died for this to happen?

SJMR: Not really. We all have a time to die, and we cannot say when that time is going to be. It was just this lady’s time, and her family was generous enough to donate her organs, and I got one.

Since I am a religious person, my community here, the Sisters of the Resurrection, has prayed for the family and for the woman who died. She was my age, and a brain stem hemorrhage is what she died from, and that’s why all her organs were intact. I think they gave six or seven of them.

CNW: In the time you’ve been dealing with this, have you seen any change in the public attitude towards organ donation?

SJMR: I wish I could say I did, but I don’t. I think people are still as scared as they used to be, and I wish that they wouldn’t be. I think after Walter Payton died, there was a little bit more positive attention coming out. I wish there were a lot more.

I think that one of the fears people have is that when they get to the hospital, and they notice they’re an organ donor, they won’t get the care they should get. Hospitals ethically and morally cannot do that, and I try to allay this fear that people have, but it still is there. The other fear people have is that they’re going to be disfigured after the organs have been taken and they’re going to have to have a closed casket and so on, and it’s not true. They don’t disfigure the body in any way. Those are the two big fears.

Then, since I’m a religious person, they’ll always ask me the religion question. Is it against our religion? Can we do this? All the major religions can.

CNW: Are the religion questions part of the reason for starting National Donor Sabbath?

SJMR: That’s part of the reason. It was done because we thought that’s an area that really needs to be tapped, because if people are saying that they are charitable, that they love one another, so to speak, this is the best way to show it. I mean, the greatest gift you can give another human being is to share part of your body with them. When you die, what are you going to take it for? I mean, you get a glorified body after death.

If you want to donate your organs when you die, you have to make sure your family knows, because they can reverse that decision.

 

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