By Scott L. Miley
May 08, 2008 06:39 pm
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ELWOOD — Angie Collins has become a teacher’s pet, though it may have taken 22 years and a kidney.
Collins, 40, donated her kidney this week to her former Elwood Community High School English teacher Darren Paquin.
“I can’t help but think that our paths crossed a long time ago as a student and teacher; I think God knew all along that this was the plan,” said Paquin sitting in her room at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis.
“He works in mysterious ways, doesn’t he?”
Her surgery was Tuesday. She’ll head home on Sunday for Mother’s Day.
Collins, the mother of three, is to go home this week but was recuperating Thursday from her surgery.
“I thought and prayed for about two months,” Collins said. “I wanted to make the decision to donate first, before I ever found out if I would be a match.
“Then, when I made the decision to donate, I knew I was a match. I knew it in my heart.”
Her husband, Dean, explained that his wife felt compelled to offer a kidney after she first heard about the need.
“She knew she wanted to do it and she knew she was supposed to,” he said.
Before surgery, Paquin was among 814 people in Indiana — and 76,629 nationally — awaiting a kidney transplant.
Nationally and in Indiana, those awaiting kidneys form the largest group of patients needing transplants, said the Indiana Organ Procurement Organization.
Through Web sites and public awareness, patients don’t always have to rely on family members to serve as donors, though there is typically an 18- to 24-month wait.
“With the new easier procedures, we have a lot more nonrelated living donors, just friends or a church member who hears about the need,” said Dr. Charles Carter Jr., her specialist in nephrology and internal medicine.
In high school, Collins — then Angie Melvin — was Paquin’s student in speech and composition.
“She ended up being my little student who becomes special, a good friend, not a teacher’s pet, although she is a teacher’s pet now,” laughed Paquin, 60.
The Paquins and Collins have been close, living in the same neighborhood and socializing together.
Collins is president of the Elwood Chamber of Commerce and executive director of the St. Vincent Mercy Hospital Foundation.
Paquin, who taught English for 32 years, has had two heart transplants. The last one in 1999 put a stress on her kidneys due to immunosuppressants and catheters, she said.
Doctors tested Paquin’s son and daughter, but they were unable to be donors.
Paquin said, “So Angie said to me, ‘If your kids are unable to do this, I want to be tested. I want to do this for you.’”
“They went on and tested her and she was a match.”
Kidneys are more in demand than any other organ, noted Sam Davis, director of professional services for the Indiana Organ Procurement Organization.
“Unfortunately it’s a reflection of public health,” Davis said.
Kidneys are damaged by people who have uncontrolled or undiagnosed diabetes and high blood pressure, he said.
By the time they see an internist, dialysis can only help to a certain degree. That leaves a transplant as often the best option, he said.
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Patients awaiting transplants
(nationally and statewide)
Heart: National: 2,658 State: 32
Heart/Lung: National: 100 State: 0
Lung: National: 2,098 State: 46
Liver: National: 16,367 State: 45
Kidney: National: 76,629 State: 814
Kidney/Pancreas: National: 2,283 State: 51
Pancreas: National: 1,627 State: 14
Intestine: National: 228 State: 6
Total Patients: National: 98,525 State: 939
Source: Indiana Organ Procurement Organization
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To register as a donor: www.donatelifeindiana.org
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