Yard signs invite potential kidney donors to contact the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Star Journal photo

Rhinelander’s Jill Bishop ‘hoping and praying someone comes forward’

By Eileen Persike

Editor

RHINELANDER – For as far back as she can remember Jill Bishop has been overcoming one health challenge or another. Seizures as a child, brain surgery as a young adult and then a pair of serious and rare medical conditions that led to organ damage, eventually undergoing removal of a kidney is just the short version of what the Rhinelander native’s life has been.

So when she learned almost a year ago that her one remaining kidney was failing, Jill, 61, took it in stride, put her head down and learned as much as she could about the process of getting a kidney transplant.
What is different this time is that Jill now relies on the kindness of a friend, neighbor or a stranger to put her on the path to better health. She has a large family, but medical issues are preventing them from being accepted as donors.

In the early 1980s, Jill was diagnosed with a rare genetic disease call tuberous scleroisis complex that causes non-cancerous tumors to grow in the brain and other areas including nerves, lungs, heart and kidneys. This is what caused the seizures. A few years later, Lymphangioleiomyomatosis, or LAM, was detected. LAM is a rare lung disease that causes abnormal muscle-like cells to grow out of control in the lungs and other parts of the body. She is on medication to control the tumors in her lungs, which is incompatible with receiving a donor kidney, so she can only accept a kidney from a living donor.

“To be able to have the transplant, she has to be off the medication because she won’t heal,” said Jill’s sister, Barb Knoeck. “She can’t be on the regular donor list; if someone dies, she cannot get that kidney. She needs to be off the medication for a month, which is why she needs a live donor.”

It’s a matter of finding someone who will donate a kidney so they can get it all timed out so she can be off the medication and then receive the kidney.

Fortunately for Jill, she is an avid biker, pedaling thousands of miles a year, and played softball in the past. Having good overall health, strong heart and lung capacity is what qualified her for the living donor list. In the meantime, she is preparing to begin kidney dialysis.

“Some say it perks you up, you have more energy because you do get drained,” Jill said. “You sleep a lot. You lose your muscle mass, my muscle mass has deteriorated.”

The process begins with a health history questionnaire at mayoclinic.org/livingdonor. Next someone from Mayo Clinic contacts the potential donor for an interview and makes a determination whether the candidate makes a good donor. In Jill’s case they are looking for someone with blood type O positive.

Though she needs to use oxygen now and then, Jill said she is trying to live life as usual. She just takes more naps.

“I’m just hoping and praying that someone comes forward to help,” Jill said.

How to help

• connect.mayoclinic.org/page/transplant

Visit the living donor toolkit to learn what living donors can expect with tests and screening, the procedure, risks, recovery, financial information, more

• mayoclinic.org/livingdonor

Online health history questionnaire; use laptop or desktop computer. Complete the form when you have adequate time and space to concentrate. Will need to provide current height and weight. Information will be reviewed by a living donor RN care coordinator, followed by an email or phone call.

• Questions?

Email [email protected] or call 866-277-1569