KINGSVILLE TOWNSHIP — The taste of mashed potatoes will make Thanksgiving special for Ed Hjerpe, who recently received the gift of life from his younger brother Tom.
Ed Hjerpe, 52, will be allowed to eat small helpings of food he hasn’t tasted in months, or years, when the family sits down for Thanksgiving dinner.
The family has lived with the awareness of kidney problems invading the family’s world for more than 35 years.
“My sister and I knew that this day might come. It really wasn’t that big a surprise,” said Tom Hjerpe, 51, of Fort Worth, Texas, who was happy that his blood type and other factors made
him a potential donor for his brother.
The first touches with kidney disease came in the form of their father Ed’s struggle with a hereditary kidney disease when they were teenagers.
“It is a cyst growing on the inside and outside of the kidney,” Tom said of the kidney condition.
“What it does is choke the kidney,” Ed said of the disease that was passed on to him. “I found out at age 14,” he said.
Doctors told Ed to refrain from smoking, alcohol and caffeine, and he was able to live a normal life for decades.
“It was doing pretty well till 2000 when kidney function dropped from 60 percent to 30 percent in a year,” Ed said. He said Dr. Orlando D’Silva nurtured him through four years of careful diet and medication to keep the kidneys functioning at 30 percent.
“He helped me out so I could live a normal life,” Ed said.
As his condition deteriorated, Ed was able to complete his 30 years of employment at a General Motors plant in Parma and retired in July 2006.
In April, Ed began receiving kidney dialysis three days a week for three hours a day.
In June, Tom and his sister Becky began a process to see whether they were acceptable donors. Tom said Becky was deemed unsuitable because of a previous bout with cancer, but after extensive testing, Tom was deemed an appropriate donor.
The surgery was scheduled for Oct. 7, but a last-minute glitch postponed it until Nov. 11 so that Tom’s health history could be reviewed in greater depth.
“We were both just so relieved. We were just excited,” Tom said of their feelings when the final go-ahead was given.
Both brothers said they believe God’s timing was critical in the process and want to give him all the glory.
“We had probably thousands of people praying for us. It was just such a sense of peace,” Ed said of his mood going into surgery.
The brothers said they were both at peace with the surgery, which came off without a hitch.
“I will never be able to thank him enough. I just love him,” Ed said.
“I’m just thankful I was able to do it,” Tom said.
The first three to six months are critical to see how the body is going to respond to a new organ but so far, so good, Ed said. He said his test results are positive and he is able eat foods that have been out of bounds for a long time.
Ed’s wife, Karen, said the surgery day was really rough.
“I was excited but scared to death,” she said.
“What does ‘thank you’ mean? It is just a tiny little word,” Karen said of the inadequate nature of how to show her gratitude to Tom.
“We are going to have a great Thanksgiving, and it’s going into a great Thanksgiving year,” Karen said.
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