Craigslist a real lifesaver for kidney recipient

It happened late this past summer while he was browsing Craigslist.

Glenn Calderbank, who runs a home remodeling company, regularly visits the classified ad website looking for materials; this time, he was searching for limestone row house stairs.

However, he came across a very different type of advertisement.

“It just said, ‘looking for a brave person,’” said Calderbank, a resident of West Berlin.

The ad was placed by Kay Saria, an Egg Harbor City resident. A year before, his wife, Nina Saria, suffered kidney failure. She got on the organ transplant waiting list and was undergoing dialysis. Twice, she was put on alert that she might get a new kidney, but each time it fell through.

“There was no other options,” Kay Saria said. He put the ad online, asking for a kidney donor for his wife.

“A lot of people answered,” he said. “But a lot of people never came through.”

Until Calderbank. “He saw this and it struck a chord,” Saria said.

Calderbank said he responded, out of curiosity, to inquire Nina Saria's blood type. He already knew he was type A.

The Sarias replied that Nina was also type A, and Calderbank asked to meet them. They hesitated to invite the man to their home, so he finally asked them to come to his house, insisting he wanted to share a story with them.

Calderbank's late wife, Jessica, had childhood diabetes and the disease caused complications, including kidney failure. At that time, in 2004, Glenn posted an ad in the Courier-Post asking for a type O donor. The story was picked up by local TV news, then by affiliates and news services across the country. The family took calls from strangers offering money, offering kidneys.

“We found a hundred people who were willing to, from New Jersey to Texas,” Calderbank said. The only problem was that their hospital, Our Lady of Lourdes, had a policy requiring donors have a connection.

His wife eventually got a kidney from a car accident victim, but after a couple of years, her body rejected it, and she went back on dialysis in 2009. She passed away in 2011.

Calderbank is certain she would have had more success with a kidney from a living donor, and he is certain that he was meant to see the Sarias’ Craigslist post — that Jessica made him see it. He understood what Nina’s husband is going through.

“I was Kay,” he said. "I was Jessica’s nurse for five years … I know what it’s like to be him.”

After he told them his story, “He said, ‘I think I can save your life,’” Nina Saria said.

Calderbank spent the next two months traveling to and from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where the transplant will take place, to get tested. Even as former alcoholic, four years sober, and a lifelong smoker, he passed all of the medical examinations and tests. “I blame it on eating right,” he said.

Calderbank then underwent a series of psychological tests. He has a printed list of all of the exams — around two dozen — marked with the date they were completed. On Oct. 22, he was finally able to call Saria with good news: The transplant was scheduled for Dec. 1.

“All this time, I didn’t want to believe this was really happening,” she said. “When I say this story to people, they are like, ‘Are you sure he’s really going to do that?’ They can’t believe Glenn actually exists.”

Saria has to go to dialysis three days a week, and said the whole process can take hours. “It’s like a job, basically.”

Her disease, microscopic polyangiitis, is a rare autoimmune disease. It began with a pain in her knee that she said felt like a pinched nerve. At 32 and healthy, Saria assumed it was an exercise injury, until she was rushed to the emergency room with shortness of breath.

“This disease took a lot out of me,” she said.

Saria never had a major health issue, and had no family history of kidney problems. She is excited about the transplant, looking forward to going to school for nursing, and spending more time with her son Nicholas, 6.

Speed swabbing helps Gift of Life

“I’m not doing it for recognition or thank yous,” Calderbank said. “I’m doing it because I want Nina’s kid to have a mom.”

Calderbank texts Saria every morning to see how she is doing, or before dialysis to wish her a good treatment. Their families regularly have dinner together.

“I think in life,” she said, “there’s only a few people you really trust, and feel like they’re your people. Because of Glenn, I feel like I have a second chance at life.”

When he was first meeting Saria's family and friends, Calderbank said, he sometimes felt like a walking kidney. “I said, ‘When you get my kidney, is the friendship over?’ She said, ‘We’re not like that.’”

It’s been tough lately for Calderbank, who said he has never been sick or had surgery before. He gets more nervous by the day. His doctors made him quit smoking and get health insurance prior to the surgery, neither of which he is happy about, but he followed their orders.

The recovery for him will take one to two months, and he expects his wife, Sue Calderbank, will have to strap him down to keep him from going back to work too soon.

“I’m calling this my hospital vacation,” said Calderbank, who works seven days a week. He put his business on hold, refunded deposits for upcoming projects. Not everyone was understanding: “I had a guy ask if I could delay the operation.”

Church member shares gift of life

He did clear the organ donation with his wife first, who didn’t hesitate to back him up in his choice.

“I support him fully,” Sue Calderbank said. "And I do think there is a reason this is all coming together. I believe God got us to it; he’ll get us through it. There are too many things that clicked.”

It takes a life experience, like what he went through with Jessica, for someone to do something like this, Calderbank said.

The Sarias wish there was more awareness about organ donation. On the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website, there is a running number of people on organ waiting lists, updated minute-by-minute. The number of people waiting for kidneys is currently more than 100,000, and climbing.

Nina and Kay Saria said even their friends and family have admitted they wouldn’t be willing to donate a kidney, that some were not aware they have two kidneys and some even think transplants are deadly.

“You don’t expect these kinds of things to happen,” Kay Saria said. “I guess there are people in the world who care.”

Nina Saria started a Go Fund Me page for Glenn; although her insurance is covering his medical bills, she wants to help him in some way, to make up for the work he will lose while he is recovering, as she isn’t legally allowed to pay him.

“There’s no words,” she said, “there’s no thank you, there’s not enough you can do for the person who is saving you."

Calderbank said the doctors have given him every opportunity to back out, something he insisted won’t happen.

“That’s not my style,” he said. “I’m kind of bullheaded and when I made up my mind, that was it. There’s no way I’m going to disappoint her.”

Shannon Eblen: SEblen@gannettnj.com or (856) 486-2475

On the web

For more information on organ donation and transplants, visit organdonor.gov

For Nina's Go Fund Me page for Glenn, visit gofundme.com/helpmydonor