PEA RIDGE — In June, Kim Easter gave her husband Scott a gift like none other - her kidney.

Despite Scott’s younger sister being an exact match, it was his wife’s partiallymatched kidney that replaced his failed ones.

The Easters have been part of the congregation at Twelve Corners Baptist Church in Pea Ridge for 10 years. Scott is a deacon at the church. His parents, Larry and Ina Easter, moved to Pea Ridge during his junior year of high school. Scott left the area to join the Army in 1992 and was gone for over eight years. He settled with his wife Kim, of Gravette, in Gentry.

Toward the middle of 2009, Scott began rapidly losing weight. Over six months, he dropped 60 pounds.

“My joints started hurting real bad, I blamed it on running in the Army. I could find an excuse for everything that was wrong,” he said.

“Imagine an 80-year-old man walking with a cane, that’s how he felt,” Kim said.

On Jan. 4, he went to his primary care doctor. They did blood work and called him the next day to say he needed to go to the hospital right away.

“They put me in a room and ran tests. At 7 p.m., they came in and told me my kidneys were only functioning at 10 percent,” he said.

Scott was diagnosed with Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), a common form of kidney disease. The cause is unknown and can be anything from medication to an allergic reaction. Kidney disease does not run in his family. His only options were to do dialysis three days a week for the rest of his life or get a transplant.

“Everything I had was a symptom of kidney failure.

But unless you know it, you don’t know it,” he said.

He was put on the national transplant list and began dialysis Jan. 6. Every other day, he went to Benton County Dialysis and sat while a machine ran the blood out of his body, through a filter and back in.

Scott is an avid tournament fisherman, but had to give that up. He couldn’t travel away from home and miss a dialysis appointment. He changed his diet.

But the more treatment he had, the less his body ached.

Doctors tested Scott’s two sisters’ and Kim’s kidneys. The results came in early February, all three were a match. His younger sister matched six of six criteria, his older sister had four of six and Kim was barely a match, with just two of six. After two or three initial tests, doctors changed their mindsabout transplanting the perfectly matched kidney into Scott.

“They said ‘if we put her perfect kidney back in you, there would be too much of you in you,’” he said, adding the matching kidney would likely fail.

The testing process on Kim took three months.

“The testing for me was more thorough,” she said, “to make sure I could survive on just one kidney.

But God was all over it, He was taking care of everything.”

On May 26, the transplant was scheduled at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. The night before, Kim came down with a 101.6 degree temperature.

“Apparently God didn’t want it to happen that day, they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me.

I was treated for pneumonia. They had to redo all the tests, you have to have them done within two weeks of the surgery,” she said.

June 16 everything went as planned.

“I called him before thesurgery and said ‘I love you, bye.’ Then I called right back and said ‘No wait, I didn’t mean bye! I’ll see you later!’” Kim said.

After over six hours of surgery, they went into recovery, then into separate rooms.

“They wanted us up and walking 12 hours after surgery. We had a bet, whoever was the first to walk to the other’s room, bend over and kiss them on the forehead got a Coke and candy bar,” Kim said.

“I walked to his room several times but couldn’t bend over because it hurt.

He walked to mine, bent over and kissed me. I lost the bet, I said ‘You gotta be kidding me!’”

Three days later, the Easters were home. The worst part about the recovery, they both agreed and laughed about, was having their mothers at home.

“The worst part was not being able to get up and make a sandwich - not because we were in pain, but because we weren’t allowed to,” Scott said.

Wednesday, the Easters canned 100 jars of pickles,salsa and peppers from their garden, first attempt at canning. Scott is able to fish once again.

“It was five months and 11 days from diagnosis to transplant. Some people wait for a kidney for 26 years,” Scott said.

“God blessed us, it went so smoothly that it wasn’t ever a catastrophe for us, it just happened so quick,” Kim said.

These days it’s harder for her to get her energy up. She gets tired and takes naps. The doctors told her energy would build up over time.

Through the whole process, the Easters’ insurance through Wal-Mart has been a life-saver.

Scott will be on anti-rejection medication for the rest of his life. Without insurance, his combined medications for one month would cost $4,000.

“People take their health for granted, don’t want to spend $150 once a year to get a physical. But regardless of how good you feel, spend the money, go get it checked. There are three dialysis units in northwest Arkansas - and they’re all full. Twelve hours a week for the rest of your life is huge,” Scott said.

Scott is an operations manager at the Wal-Mart Pharmacy Distribution Center and Kim is a manager at Wal-Mart PMDC.

They have three boys, twins Tyler and Matthew, 14, and Kevin, 13.

“People at PMDC were great, they came and mowed our yard once a week and brought all kinds of food. The people God put in our sphere of existence have really helped us out,” Kim said.

Community, Pages 7 on 07/28/2010