Kidney transplant recipient counts his blessings—twice

Plagued with kidney problems since he was a small child, Scott Jameson is feeling pretty lucky today. Jameson was fortunate to undergo not one, but two successful kidney transplants, the most recent done here at University of Minnesota Medical Center. 

Jameson was always small—at age 4, he weighed only 22 pounds. He suffered from kidney problems since he was 18 months old, and doctors told his parents that a transplant was his only option. A young Jameson found a match in his mom, Louise, who had a kidney she needed removed anyway.  Although he was small, Jameson surpassed all expectations and stayed healthy for 37 years following his transplant. 


"Kidney transplants from living donors last 14 years on average," says Ty Dunn, MD, transplant surgeon. "Most don’t last as long as his did." 

In his early 40s, Jameson, a community access TV show producer, started to feel tired. He thought it was because he was getting older. However, while he has having some routine blood work , doctors found his kidney was starting to fail. He was put on the national kidney transplant waiting list in January. His doctors predicted he would have to start dialysis before a kidney would be available, as the cadaver-donor kidney shortage requires waiting, on average, about five years. Nearly 76,000 people were on a waiting list for a kidney transplant in 2007, according to United Network for Organ Sharing data. The prior year, about 73,000 were on the list, but only about 18,000 received a transplant and another 4,000 died while waiting for a donor.

"I was confronted with mortality once, but I was young and didn’t understand it. The second time around, I had a better understanding about what it really meant," says Jameson.

Finding a kidney

Luck was on Jameson’s side once again when, on Feb. 8—only one month after being put on the list—he was told a suitable donor was found, but the organ had a chance of not working right away or at all. He had only a few hours to get to the hospital. The next day, he had his second successful kidney transplant. The kidney worked immediately, and he was discharged just five days later.

It’s unusual for someone to wait only a few weeks on the list, but sometimes circumstances present an opportunity to use a kidney that would otherwise not be used at all. 

"If a kidney is disadvantaged in a major way but is judged to be usable, we look for patients with very specific medical criteria that offer the most gain and the least risk," says Dunn. "That allows a successful transplant and reduces the wait list by one person. Every kidney that is usable should be used, and this case shows how small miracles can happen for one person when we use our resources wisely."

Jameson is grateful for the doctors and nurses at the hospital. "They literally saved my life—twice," he says. "This experience has made me look at life differently," says Jameson. "I’ve become a huge advocate of the volunteer aspect and talking to kids who are waiting for transplants." He hopes to come back to the medical center soon, this time as a volunteer.