Emmet gives ‘gift of life’ to his mother

Having already given the gift of life to her youngest son, Emmet, 28 years ago, an Athlone women ended up being given her own life back last year by that same son as a result of his decision to enter a living kidney donor swap programme in the United States.

Laura Greene, who is originally from Auburn Heights in Athlone, but who now lives in Connecticut on the east coast of the United States with her family, was diagnosed with a very rare kidney disorder called Goodpasture Syndrome in September 2020. The disease, which attacks the kidneys and lungs, resulted in Laura suffering renal failure and being placed on dialysis while awaiting a kidney transplant.

“We had just bought a house in March 2020, Covid had just started and I began to feel unwell,” recalls Laura. When her symptoms continued to worsen over the summer she eventually went to the Emergency Department in Greenwich Hospital in Connecticut in September.

“They ran a few tests and 15 minutes later I was told that I was in renal failure and if the disease moved to my lungs it could be fatal,” she says. Laura was put on two intensive courses of dialysis over a four-week period for four hours every day to try to stem the progression of the disease and, while it did stop it from spreading to her lungs, her kidney function did not return.

“I couldn't be considered for a transplant for a full year as the Goodpasture Syndrome had to be completely gone out of my system, so I continued on dialysis three times a week for three hours each time for the next year and a half while waiting for a transplant," she told the Westmeath Independent.

To say that the lives of Laura herself, her husband Bob and her three children were completely upended following her diagnosis is “an understatement” she admits, although she managed to continue working on a part-time basis as an Executive Assistant and Officer Manager at a financial tech company in New York city during her treatment. “I used to go into the office on the two days I wasn't getting dialysis and worked from home the other three days,” she says, adding that it helped that she received her dialysis at a medical facility just five minutes from her home.

“Waiting for a deceased donor can take years and when my family began to see my frustration at being restricted by three times weekly dialysis, my youngest son, Emmet, decided to step up and donate his kidney to me,” says Laura, who admits she was “completely overwhelmed” at such a gesture. “It was just such a wild notion to think that my own child was prepared to give me a second lease of life while sacrificing months of his own life to fulfil the testing requirements and also having to endure a very difficult surgery and recovery period – but that's exactly what he did.”

Discovering that his kidney was not a compatible match for his mother did not deter Emmet Greene, however, and he decided to enrol in an innovative kidney swap programme which is currently not available to patients in the Republic of Ireland who are awaiting a kidney transplant.

Kidney Paired Donation (KPD), also known as a kidney swap, occurs where two or more pairs of living donors swap kidneys to make a compatible match. The transplant surgeries take place simultaneously with each recipient being given the gift of life as part of a 'swap' process.

Emmet and Laura Greene both underwent surgery on July 7 last year and the only information Laura has about the donation process is that Emmet's kidney went to a compatible recipient in New York and Laura also received a compatible kidney from a 23-year old living donor also based in New York. “Our surgeries were a great success, and both of our donor partner's surgeries were also very successful, so those surgeries resulted in four peoples' lives being changed forever,” says a grateful Laura.

Emmet Greene, who holds a Masters Degree in Criminal Justice from Fisher College, Boston, and currently works as an investigator in the Boston District Attorney's office, was discharged from hospital three days after his transplant surgery while his mother was discharged a day later, and she says the post-operative recovery period for both of them was “a real family affair with all hands on deck.” Her daughter, Ashling, was driving up and down from her home in Boston to look after them while her other son, Conor, who is a chef, was “demented looking up recipes and ensuring that we were fed properly,” she laughs.

Despite his youth, Laura Greene says her youngest son “never once complained” during the tough days of his post-operative recovery period and was “a real inspiration” to the rest of the family. She points out that the recovery period for the donor is often “much more difficult and challenging” than it is for the recipient, but Emmet “took everything in his stride once he had made the decision to donate a kidney to me.”

To mark the first anniversary of her successful kidney transplant and her 60th birthday, Laura Greene returned to her native Athlone last week with her family for the first time in four years and held a double celebration with family and friends in The Villager in Glasson on Saturday night last.

Having originally moved to New York in 1986 after her marriage to Bob Greene (who was, incidentally, born in Brooklyn but moved back to Moydrum with his family as a child), the Greene's moved back to Athlone some years later and settled in Glasson for more than 10 years before deciding to emigrate to the US again in 2013 and settling there permanently.

The couple's three children were born in the US, but went to Tubberclair national school, with their only daughter, Ashling, who now manages a restaurant in Boston, receiving her secondary school education in the former Summerhill College while New York-based private chef, Conor, and Emmet both went to the Marist.

Laura is the youngest of the late Mattie and Nancy Scally's family of eight from Auburn Heights in Athlone, one of whom, the oldest, Alice, is deceased. Five of her remaining siblings, Celine, Ita, Matt, Áine and Jenny, live in Athlone while her brother, Paul, lives in Celbridge.

While she will be on anti-rejection medication for the rest of her life, has to be careful not to get an infection, and has to attend check-ups every six months, Laura Greene says it is “a small price to pay” for the success of her surgery which has allowed her to get back to living “a normal life.” Both herself and her husband commute to New York every day where he works as a concierge at a at a residential building in Manhattan and she is about to take up a new job with a financial tech company in the One World Trade Center in lower Manhattan.

Emmet Greene says that when his mother was on dialysis he decided to donate a kidney to her “because we all needed to get our lives back, I never gave my decision a second thought, I just decided to do it and we have never looked back since.”

“Having a second chance at life is like a miracle to me,” says Laura Greene, “and I would plead with everyone to consider becoming a donor, or at least to help to spread awareness about the amazing benefits of the living donor programme which can literally give someone their life back, just as it did for me.”