Chapter 22/Little Travis gets his kidney transplant

I've been asked to do a lot of stories with people needing organ transplants.

The first kidney transplant I taped was at Parkland Hospital in Dallas (where a decade earlier President John Kennedy was pronounced dead after being assassinated). I was doing a story about a generous and loving sister donating a kidney to her brother. I also taped a similar story at University Hospital in Madison.

Recently a 38-year-old woman from Northeast Wisconsin paid me a visit while getting a check up at University Hospital in Madison. I had interviewed Leann Pomplun of Berlin when she was a 13-year-old teenager with a new kidney. The kidney was still going strong 25 years after the transplant.

Leigh Ann got her kidney from a deceased 12-year-old Wausau girl who was killed by a motorist who ran a stop sign. The families of the two girls found each other shortly after the transplant and have spent every Christmas together and often go on vacation with one another.

"They told me the kidney would last up to seven years," Leann told a newspaper reporter recently. "Then they changed it to 12 years. Well, here I am and it's still good after 25!"

After my initial story with Leann, her parents, Marvin and Laurine Pomplun, asked me to tell about another area child needing a kidney.

I did that story about little Travis Hilgart and received the following letter from his mother, Donna.

Dear Glen:

Thank you so much for taking the time to come out and do the story on Travis. It really means a lot to me that people realize that Travis, along with many others, are in need of kidneys and are unable to receive one from a family member. I hope this made people realize the importance of signing donor cards. I appreciate everything that everyone is doing to help us out, such as putting stories in papers and on TV.

I really like how you captured Travis saying he wanted to "grow up." [The boy's condition had made him smaller than others his age.] That brought tears to my eyes.

Follow up letter from Travis' Mother:

Dear Glen:

Back in February you did a wonderful story on our little boy, Travis, who was in need of a kidney transplant. [She describes a long ordeal that Travis went through with temporary dialysis in which infection set in after a catheter had been put in his abdomen.]
He was supposed to go home from the hospital but the transplant team came into his room and said they had a possible kidney for him.
He was out of surgery the next day at midnight. Everything went real well. I was so relieved after waiting more than five years that I almost fainted.

At the time of the transplant, he weighed a mere 24 pounds. Now, almost nine months later, he weights 35 pounds. He's also 2.5 inches taller.

Our dream came true for him to get a kidney. Now his dream to "grow up" is working its way for him. He may be small, but to me he is grown-up already. He's been through so much in his life that he is emotionally very strong.

He seemed quite full of energy before, but now he has enough for 10 kids. He runs and plays hard all day, after his morning kindergarten and is still going when the rest want to go to bed!

This kidney was donated from a family that lost a 15-year-old in a fatal fall from a ladder. That is all we know and possibly all we will ever know. We are so very grateful for their thoughtfulness and we did send them a card and letter through the transplant co-ordinators.

We would also like to express our thanks to all of those who have donated kidneys or have signed their cards to intend to. There are many more children out there that are still patiently waiting.

Donna and Wes Hilgart
Berlin, WI.

[When Travis died a few years ago as a young man, his kidney was still working.]