Debbie Rabjohn of Canton needs a kidney, and there’s a whole community trying to help her get one.
Many, including her youngest daughter, 23-year-old Cherokee Rabjohn, have offered up one of their kidneys and even completed tests to see if there was a match. But there wasn’t one. They keep hoping and praying for other donors to come forward so Rabjohn can have a successful kidney transplant.
Rabjohn, 58, has an incurable, progressive kidney disease called Membranous Glomernephritis. As a result, her kidneys don’t filter toxins from her blood, and she’s now in stage 4 renal failure.
“We’ve just got to find a match,” said her friend Kelly Berryhill, whose own kidneys were not a match. “Everybody loves her, and it stinks that this is happening to her.”
Daughter Cherokee grew up watching her mother endure chemotherapy, regular infusions and constant medications.
Rabjohn never thought a kidney transplant was even an option until a friend asked if she could be her donor. When she mentioned this to her doctor, he immediately put her name on the donor transplant list. “I was in complete shock,” remembers Rabjohn, “because I never thought this was possible for me.”
When Cherokee came home from Carrollton, where she is in graduate school at the University of West Georgia, her mom told her the good news that she was eligible for a transplant.
Her daughter had one response: “How do I give you one of my kidneys?”
“That was hard for me. Cherokee’s my baby. It would mean we both would be under the knife at the same time,” said Rabjohn who has an older daughter and a grandson.
It would also mean another surgery for Cherokee, who had brain surgery at age 10 for an arteriovenous malformation and almost died, her mother said. Many other surgeries on her brain followed.
Cherokee went forward with donor tests, in spite of her mother’s resistance. Her kidneys were not a match for her mom so she found another way to help.
Cherokee is donating a kidney to a stranger through a paired kidney exchange, putting her mother at the top of the transplant list through the Piedmont Transplant Institute.
The paired-kidney exchanges mix and match recipients and their donors until finding the right pairings. The donation assures that the person you volunteered to help gets a new organ, too.
Cherokee said she’s happy to do this because it moves her mom to the top of the list. “You get a kidney as soon as they get one that matches. Working with Piedmont, they are an easy team to work with,” she said.
Credit: Phil Skinner
Credit: Phil Skinner
Because wait times average three to five years, many people with kidney disease die before a new organ becomes available.
Cherokee has gone through all the medical testing and monitoring by Piedmont’s transplant team. The transplant process for the living-kidney donor is a minimally invasive surgery, a maximum of two days in the hospital, and back to regular routines within two weeks.
Mother and daughter each have their bags packed for a surgical alert call, giving them only two hours to get to the hospital.
The Cherokee County community continues to rally behind them both.
Berryhill said Rabjohn is always doing for others, and even if she’s having a bad day, she never lets that stop her.
“She’s like an Energizer Bunny. She’s always going, always volunteering,” Berryhill said.
Rabjohn was active in parent-teacher associations for 15 years, holding high positions locally and statewide. She remains involved with the Holly Springs Optimist Club.
Berryhill got to know her friend when Rabjohn was PTA president at River Ridge High School and they both had children in the school. Jeff Bennett also knows Rabjohn from when he was a guidance counselor at River Ridge, and Cherokee was a student he mentored.
“Debbie has always had a passion for the community and will help anyone and everyone she can,” said Bennett, who also offered to be a kidney donor but was not a match. “That’s why I wanted to support her. She has supported our schools, the students within our community. “When someone is down on their luck, she’s the first one to reach out to them. She’s always reaching out to help others.”
The community is now reaching out to Rabjohn. “We’re pretty blessed,” she says.
HOW TO HELP DEBBIE RABJOHN
To become a kidney donor contact Barbara O’Neal, living donor transplant coordinator at Piedmont Transplant Institute. 404-605-4128. Or, visit https://www.nkr.org/microsite/custom-site/1959/16E1F49D77940E77
Financial contributions: www.gofundme.com/f/7bcec-debbies-kidney-transplant
Fundraiser dinner and auction will be Oct. 29 at Suite Six, Sidelines Grille, 147 Reinhardt College Parkway, Canton. Details and tickets at https://debbierabjohnkidneytransp.rsvpify.com.
About the Author
