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Wheaton Accountant Does Taxes, Donates Kidney for Client

Wheaton resident Jeffrey Waters donated his kidney to client Mary Fitzgerald's daughter, Kelly. "I'm lucky that I'm this healthy, so it's something I could do to help somebody else out," he said.

When Wheaton resident Jeff Waters went in to work at his Glen Ellyn office one morning last February, he had no idea that by the end of the day, he would offer to give away one of his vital organs.

Waters, 45, has been President of Jeffrey J. Waters, CPA, P.C., Public Accountants since 1998. When tax season geared up this year, he heard from his longtime client, Mary Fitzgerald.

"Generally speaking, he mails me my materials and I mail them back, and so it goes," Fitzgerald said. But this year, Fitzgerald had two specific questions, and went in to Waters' office to meet personally.

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During the meeting, tax talk gave way to family talk, and Waters asked about Fitzgerald's daughter, Kelly.

Kelly Fitzgerald, 41, of Oakbrook Terrace, has had juvenile diabetes since she was 22 months old. In June of 2001, Kelly underwent a successful kidney and pancreas transplant. But things took a turn for the worse in March 2004, when Kelly fell while getting out of the shower.

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By the time Kelly was airlifted to the University of Chicago Medical Center, her pancreas was still functioning, but her kidney had failed. Shortly after, Kelly began dialysis—the process of removing the blood, purifying it, then returning it to the circulatory system. Three times a week, Kelly underwent dialysis for the next six and a half years. During that time, the Fitzgeralds hoped, waited and prayed for news of a compatible kidney that was available to be transplanted.

The week before standing in Waters' office, the Fitzgeralds were told a kidney was available for Kelly, but at the last minute, the transplant had to be cancelled because the kidney turned out to be damaged. 

"I thought, any problem I have pales in comparison to something like that," Waters remembers. "I told (Fitzgerald), 'I can't even imagine you're here today doing taxes when something like that happens.'"

Fitzgerald told him, "Well, we just learned to never get our hopes up. We just need to find another B positive donor."

"That's when it clicked," Waters said. "I knew from my LifeSource Donor Card that I was B positive."

A life saving phone call

Shortly after Fitzgerald left Waters' office, she remembers getting a call from him. "He called about a 1099 and we talked about that," Fitzgerald said. "Then he said, 'You know, I was thinking … do you think I could give Kelly a kidney?'"

Fitzgerald was flabbergasted. "I'm a nurse and a healthcare administrator," she said. "Kelly has been transplanted before and my other daughter (Eileen, who died in January 2008 of complications from juvenile diabetes) has had two transplants. Not many families have experienced four transplants. So this stuff is not new to me. But to have someone who never even met Kelly and just come out of the blue and just as a gift offer a kidney …" she trailed off.

Fitzgerald regained her composure. "I asked him, 'But Jeff, why do you want to do this?'"

He answered, "Well, I just figured I have two, and I only need one."

'Afraid to believe it was true'

The way Kelly remembers it, her mother was distracted that day.

"I was volunteering at a nursing home, and she came to pick me up," Kelly said. "I'm legally blind—I have 10 percent vision in my right eye and my left eye is blind. But I could tell she wasn't right. I said, 'Ma, what's going on?'" In fact, Mary Fitzgerald was so distracted that she forgot to pay attention to where she was driving.

"She was driving the wrong way down a one-way street," Kelly said, laughing. "That was funny!"

But when Mary told her daughter that Waters intended to give her a kidney, both women felt stunned and elated, but as always, cautious.

"I was afraid to believe it was true," Kelly said.

Over the next few months, both Kelly and Waters underwent a battery of tests to establish that Kelly's system would not reject Waters' kidney. Along the way, Waters says medical staff repeatedly told him not to feel pressured to go through with the transplant.

"I understand why they say that," says Waters, "but I was really getting ticked off. I wouldn't have come in and said I wanted to do this if I really didn't want to do it."

At home, Waters knew he could count on support from his wife, Tricia, and his daughter, Sarah. "They were positive about it from the beginning," he said.

The big day

On Jun. 29, Waters and Kelly both underwent surgery at University of Chicago Medical Center in Hyde Park. Tricia and Sara Waters and Mary Fitzgerald waited anxiously in the hospital waiting room.

Once Kelly went into ICU, her surgeon came out to talk to Mary and to meet the Waters family. 

"You are greater people than I," the surgeon told Tricia. "If my wife told me she wanted to donate a kidney, I'd say, 'now we have to talk about this.'"

Tricia smiled and looked up at him. "We never questioned it for a moment."

A perfect match

With surgery and dialysis behind her, Kelly says she honestly hasn't felt this good in years. "I think it's taken feeling this good to realize how bad I felt (before the transplant). Jeff is a godsend."

Her mother agreed. "There's so much sadness out there, and so much ugliness, that we really feel a responsibility to tell this story," she said. "It is impossible to describe what a gift of life this has been."

As for Waters, he's back at work and feels thankful that Kelly has shown no signs of rejecting his kidney. In his mind, Waters' generosity wasn't heroic—or even noble.

"I'm lucky that I'm this healthy, so it's something I could do to help somebody else out," he said.

"It's great to hear people say, 'great job, we're proud of you,'" Waters said. "But I just feel I did what I was supposed to do." 

 

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