Not slowed by new kidney, local nurse works with heart transplant patients.

Lynn Kempf lives each day knowing that her body may reject one of her kidneys and she may die. She takes steroids three times a week to ensure that her body continues to accept the kidney she received more than 18 years ago from her sister.

Knowing that possibility has never slowed Kempf down. The 39-year-old nurse leads a normal, healthy and active life while working as a heart transplant coordinator at Methodist Hospital.

She works with patients who need a heart transplant or have had one. Her interest in nursing dates back to when she was 10 years old and had just been diagnosed with kidney disease.

"I spent a lot of time in hospitals as a child and as a young adult, and that had an influence on me," she said. "I've been interested in transplants for a long time, probably because of my own history."

She finds it rewarding to work with transplant patients.

"You get very close to these people. Some of these people end up in the hospital and have to stay there anywhere from one day to six months, waiting for a heart to become available," Kempf said.

Waiting for an organ

The wait for an organ begins even before patients are sick enough to be hospitalized. Kempf said a typical wait for a kidney or a heart is two years.

As of April, 2,829 people nationwide were waiting for new hearts and 23,281 were waiting for kidneys, according to the Indiana Organ Procurement Organization. In Indiana, 123 people were waiting for hearts, and 231 were waiting for kidneys. Organs for transplants are located using computer network, starting first at local level.

Transplant patients' long wait for organs often can be traced to misinformation that prevents people from donating.

"There have been a lot of myths about organ donation that I think have scared the public. There have been some movies out that depict taking organs from people before they're really dead, and that doesn't happen," Kempf explained.

"And there have been stories about how people actually had to pay for surgery bills and the expenses in donating their organs," she said. "And that shouldn't happen."

Lungs, livers, hearts, kidneys, bones, skin, eyes, corneas, tissue and heart valves can be donated. Living donors are possible for kidney and some liver transplants, but in all other transplants, cadaver donors are used.

"There are a hundred people in Indiana waiting for hearts right now, and at least one-third of those people will die before they ever get a heart transplant," she said.

"I don't think the general public thinks about organ donation until it affects them personally in some way," she continued. "Your organs certainly aren't going to do you any good once you're dead. Most major religious groups throughout the United States and in Europe have come out and said that they have no problem with organ donation."

Once a recipient has recovered from the transplant operation, he or she can begin to the live a normal life - like Kempf has done.

Kempf has proved that although the risks of infection and rejection are always a possibility after having a transplant, participation in all activities is completely safe, and even encouraged.

She discovered that in the Transplant Olympics and the International Transplant Games, which give transplant recipients the opportunity to participate in sporting events.

She has traveled to such places as Hungary to participate in track and field events. A short-distance runner, she has come home with a gold medal in 1991 and bronze and silver medals in 1992.

"I found out that people of all different levels of skill can participate. I pursued it when it was here locally and am very committed to doing it every year," she said.

EDITED BY: Chanda Boyden, 16