Michael Bynum’s sister, Nadine James, needed a new kidney to survive.
Michael, a 42-year-old unemployed former postal worker, has a different father than Nadine, 29, whom he still sometimes calls his “baby sister.” Neither is married. They have always been close and they both say they learned strength and perseverance from their mother, who died of cancer three years ago. Nadine and Michael say they were brought even closer together during their mother’s ordeal, a closeness they say helped them confront the medical emergency that was to strike Nadine.
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Michael, Nadine’s fiance Joe Lige, and shifts of cousins and in-laws took turns accompanying her to the hospital. Before long her kidneys were in total failure, and she was forced to begin dialysis.
The kidney’s functions of regulating acid-base concentrations and maintaining water balance in the tissues, not to mention metabolic waste disposal as urine, are so integral to the body’s health that kidney failure can result in a total failure of body functions.
The next test involved comparing tissue types. The closer the genetic match between Nadine and the donor, the smaller the chance that Nadine’s body would react to the new kidney as if it were an infection. (If the match isn’t perfect, the donor isn’t necessarily ruled out; immunosuppressant drugs are used to help persuade the recipient’s body to accept the invader.) Both brothers turned out to be “half matches.”
“Nadine has been crying,” said Michael the night before the operation. “At times she says she feels bad, especially if something were to happen to my other kidney.”
Brilliant neon and purplish black lights bathe the operating table in bacteria-murdering ultraviolet light. An anesthesiologist tends to Nadine’s head and a white curtain separates the life-support instruments from Nadine’s lower half. An intravenous tube runs into her night hand, which hangs loosely off the top of the table.
