Selectman grateful after appeal yields new kidney

Holliston Selectman Carl Damigella was at home in early November when he got the good news. He was going to get a new kidney from a mystery donor.

''I was ecstatic," said Damigella, whose years of diabetes and more recent kidney problems had required him to be hooked up to dialysis machines for at least seven hours a week.

''From that moment, I started the countdown of how many dialysis treatments I had left," said the Holliston native, who is up and walking less than two weeks after the transplant operation on Jan. 3 at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Damigella does not know who made the magnanimous decision to donate his organ, but he believes it might have been someone who learned about his predicament through a poster and e-mail campaign launched by friends.

''All I know is that he's a male in his mid- to late-40s, and in exceptional health," said Damigella, who will be 56 next month and has been disabled since an injury at his maintenance job in 1998.

Damigella must now watch what he eats, go in for periodic tests, and take medication for the rest of his life to prevent his body from rejecting the organ.

But he already feels like a new man. ''This is so overwhelming -- I can't express it in words."

Damigella has been a diabetic since he was 15. The disease took a toll on his kidneys, and he had been searching for a kidney donor for more than a year. Finding an organ donor is no easy task, though, and the process can be fraught with delays and disappointments.

The e-mail, poster, and media campaign coordinated last year by friends like Mary Greendale, who publishes the online weekly Holliston NetNews, was a big help.

''People through[out] town forwarded the e-mail to many other people, and that created something of a groundswell," Greendale said.

She and Andrea Minihan, an assistant to the Holliston selectmen, ended up getting phone calls from people who had read about Damigella and were interested in being a donor.

''If we didn't scare them away, then we would refer them to Mass. General," said Minihan, who has known Damigella for about 17 years.

About a half-dozen people came forward, but were turned down after a screening process that included interviews and a battery of blood and tissue tests to make sure that a donated kidney would be the right fit.

Some people weren't eligible because they had high blood pressure. One woman was told she was too small to give an organ to a man the size of Damigella, who is 5 feet 8 inches tall and solidly built.

''I had a lot of friends that were disappointed" they couldn't donate, Damigella said.

In August, he received a call that someone who was on life support might be able to provide a kidney. His hopes were dashed when, after that person died, doctors learned the kidneys were not in good-enough condition for a transplant. That experience, he said, was ''an emotional high and low."

Then came the November phone call about a person doctors identified only as an ''altruistic donor" -- someone with no close ties to the selectman.

Damigella was intensely curious but did not meet his mystery donor, even though the two were hospitalized in the same unit.

If they had met, Damigella said, he would have thanked the donor for giving him a second lease on life. ''It's huge," he said. ''It's a tremendous sacrifice."

Because the donor underwent a major surgery that required two ribs to be broken, Damigella said the donor's recovery may have been worse than his own. And while Damigella's insurance paid for both operations and hospital stays, it did not cover any lost wages the donor may have had. Then there is also the uncertainty for the donor of having only one kidney -- no backup -- if there are problems in the future.

Damigella's wife, Caroll, played a key role in his recovery, he said, taking time off from her job as a travel agent.

Damigella is optimistic that soon he will be able to resume involvement in town affairs, saying: ''I've only missed two [selectmen's] meetings."