November 23, 2009 | modernhygienist.com
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Would you give a kidney to help a co-worker?

Dental assistant Kendra Dill did, and her longtime co-worker and friend couldn’t be more thankful for the gift Dill gave her daughter.

by Renee Knight, Senior Editor

Carol Cromer, RDH, Etienne Cromer and Dental Assistant Kendra Dill.

Photo: Courtesy of Carol Cromer

Ever since Kendra Dill returned to her job as a dental assistant at The Dental Group in Maryland, co-worker Carol Cromer, RDH, won’t stop hugging her.

Dill and Cromer have been friends for nearly 20 years, and the reason behind Dill’s three-week absence shows how deep this friendship runs. On Oct. 19, she donated a kidney to Cromer’s 23-year-old daughter, Etienne Cromer—a gift Dill offered to the family on her own.

The reason behind the decision
Five years ago, Dill’s brother needed a kidney. Initial testing showed Dill and her sister were both perfect matches, but before they could take the next step, Dill’s brother developed lung cancer. He died five months later.

Knowing that she had what her brother needed but couldn’t help him is something that has bothered Dill for the last five years. She couldn’t understand why she was given this information if she couldn’t act on it. She thought there had to be a reason. And as Etienne Cromer’s condition worsened, she knew this woman she once baby sat as a child was it.

Etienne’s story
At 16, Etienne Cromer was diagnosed with kidney disease. She was only a sophomore in high school, and this was just the beginning of the challenges this young woman would face. She couldn’t go to school her junior year because the threat of illness was too great. When she returned her senior year, she began to have trouble walking. The steroids she took to treat her disease destroyed her hips, leading to three surgeries. This combined with all that comes with a chronic illness made it difficult for her to go to college right away, and she even lost a fast-pitch softball scholarship because of the surgeries.

In the early stages, biopsies showed she had minimal change disease, a form of kidney disease that typically doesn’t lead to renal failure. She later found out that wasn’t the case.

Etienne Cromer became pregnant when she was 21—something a doctor once told her she likely couldn’t do—and went into complete remission. But a few months after she gave birth to Amiya, she relapsed and her medications didn’t seem to help. Doctors did another biopsy and found out she actually had focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, a disease that did end in complete renal failure.

That was in July of 2008. By November her kidneys were embolized and she started dialysis, which kept her hooked up to a machine for three hours three days a week. It wasn’t easy, and she needed all the support from her family that she could get. Problems kept her in and out of the hospital, taking her away from her daughter.

A difficult decision

From the beginning, Etienne Cromer was clear about one thing: She didn’t want to accept a kidney donation from a live donor, especially from someone she knew. She was afraid something might go wrong, and she didn’t want to put anyone in that position. So when Dill first made the offer to at least get tested, she said absolutely not.

“It’s not a small surgery. I’ve been sick for more than seven years now, and I didn’t want anybody to go through what I’ve had to go through,” she said. “My kidney disease is such that it can return in any transplanted kidney. If someone gave me something as big as a kidney and all of a sudden the disease came back and attacked the new kidney, I would feel bad that I put someone through a huge surgery and it didn’t work—especially someone as close to me as Kendra.”

A few months after she began dialysis and experienced the negative side effects that come with it, Etienne Cromer decided it was time to add her name to the deceased donor list, something that was difficult for her to do; she wasn’t comfortable with the idea of someone having to die for her to be well, Carol Cromer said. But with the discomfort also came discouragement. The average wait time for a new kidney is 5 to 8 years, time she just didn’t seem to have.

That brought Etienne Cromer back to Dill’s offer. Her family didn’t pressure her to accept this gift, but Dill was pretty persistent; this was something she really wanted to do. Etienne Cromer began to reconsider.

“I guess I always try to help other people and I just came to terms with my self that if somebody really wants to help you, Etienne, you should let someone help you,” she said. “There’s no guarantee the disease will return, so why not try?” 

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