Editor’s Note: April is National Donate Life Month, and The Post-Searchlight will be running a series of stories throughout the month focusing on organ donation, and the lives that it touches. This is the second story in the series.

 

Bryan Wynn of Bainbridge knows first hand just how important organ donation really is.

In 2002, Wynn was diagnosed with kidney failure due to a disorder called IgA nephropathy, which affects the way the kidney filters blood. In 2003, he received a kidney transplant from his father, and it continued to work well for about three years.

However, in 2005, Wynn was on the job when he was electrocuted in an accident, which damaged the transplanted kidney and rendered it useless. Since 2005, Wynn has been forced to use a dialysis machine.

He explained that it has been difficult to find a suitable match for another kidney transplant, but recently he learned that a potential donor has been found in Texas.

Wynn has been participating in a “transplant donor pool program,” which allows for a larger database of potential donors to be created. Rather than simply looking for potential donors among family members, or people in southwest Georgia, he can, instead, find a potential donor from just about anyone in the nation.

This past Monday, April 8, Wynn was scheduled to travel to Piedmont Healthcare in Atlanta, Ga., to begin preliminary blood work. This Friday, April 12, he is scheduled to receive his transplant.

The Texas donor will be flying in from Atlanta for the surgery. In exchange, a person from Bainbridge will soon travel to Texas to provide a transplant for a needed recipient there, Wynn said.

“If it wasn’t for this donor pool program, I may not have ever found a kidney,” he said. “It really broadens the playing field as far as your chances of getting a transplant.”

Wynn said that he had numerous family members and friends get tested to see if they could donate a kidney to him, but none were a correct match. If the transplant procedure is successful Friday, Wynn will no longer have to use the dialysis machine.

“There’s no cure for the disorder that I have, but at least I won’t have to take the time out to go do dialysis or hook up to the machine,” he said.

Wynn said he is happy that many people in Decatur County have already given consideration to becoming organ donors.

“I’m not the type to ever go around and beg people to get on the donor list,” he said. “But at the same time, I think if people were educated about it, they’d come forth and participate.

“I think just about everyone has a family member who has been affected by organ failure, and I know that most people would be willing to give a kidney for a family member. I definitely think it’s something for people to look into.”

Wynn is married to Jessica, and they have a 2-1/2-year-old daughter, Tynlee.