Brian Perry arrived early at Albany Medical Center the morning of March 13. He knew the score. He had two healthy kidneys. His friend did not.

Perry, who decided in the fall of 2004 to give one of his kidneys to David Salzer, his friend of nearly 25 years, was ready. The operation was less than one week away.

Showing up before Salzer, Perry had mapped out the day. Salzer arrived later. The two then began pre-admittance blood tests and tissue-typing. March 19, the day of the surgery, was approaching, and they were excited, kidding around with doctors and surgeons.
"We were psyched"We were having a blast," Perry said. "Everything was a go."

Nearly two weeks later, the two sat at the Salzers’ kitchen table in East Greenbush. Salzer opened his cell phone and listened to messages from concerned friends, family members, and customers.

Perry sat quietly, stared at a pencil and twirled it between his fingers.
"Keep your chin up. Don’t get down on things. These things happen for a reason," one of the messages said.

Doctors, after closely re-examining Perry’s CAT scan results from weeks earlier, found Perry has an internal injury — a diaphragmatic hernia — which Perry believes he sustained in a 1980 car accident. Surgeons then called a halt to the transplant operation.

Since his accident 27 years ago, Perry has had bronchitis, pneumonia, sarcoidosis, acid reflux, and heartburn — symptoms, doctors said, possibly stemming from the herniation.
"Can I have my diaphragm fixed and then become a donor"" Perry asked surgeons. They replied that he could not since there would be too much scar tissue. "I would have signed a waiver, but they wouldn’t let me," he said.
"They will not take a kidney if it puts the donor at any risk at all," Salzer said.
"I was"I can’t even describe how I felt. I was so upset. I was mad, and then I cried. I just couldn’t believe it," he said.
Perry had rearranged his life for the donation. He married a friend of Salzer’s wife last year; the couple expedited the marriage, he said, because donating his kidney was "a heavy-duty decision."
"How can you fathom finding out you were going to be a donor, and then you were rejected as being a donor, and you find out that you have this problem, and you’ve been carrying it for about 27 years"" Perry asked.
"Even though it didn’t work out, where do you get a friend like that"" Salzer said. "Not too many people are lucky enough to get a friend like that in their life."
Perry said finding out he couldn’t donate was "a major disappointment."
"We all cried, and I don’t think there was a dry eye in the room," he said.
"It does happen a lot," said Salzer. "I’m glad they did find [the herniation] because we could have lost Brian on the operating table," he said.

It took Perry about a week to recoup from the news, he said, and, during that time, he stared out the window in disbelief.

Living and working

In preparation for the operation, Salzer’s gall bladder, which had polyps and gall stones, was removed. A shunt was later installed in his right arm.

After his gall bladder was removed, Salzer did not work for four weeks. He got a little compensation, he said, from combined-life insurance.

Salzer, who grew up in Westerlo, works as a plumber and heating technician and frequently makes repairs in the area.

Perry is also a self-employed plumber and heating technician. After discovering Perry could not donate, both have had difficulty getting back to work. As they approached the surgery date, they said, they put their customers on hold. Now, their motivation is sporadic.

Salzer said that, in the past two weeks, he has done a few jobs but hasn’t scheduled any work.
"As soon as I got that news on Tuesday, I had no desire to do a thing," Perry said. "It was like my life-plug was pulled out.""It’s like a roller-coaster," Salzer said of living with his disease. "You’ve got good days, and you’ve got bad days. It used to be the good days outweighed the bad days, but now, the bad days are starting to outweigh the good days."
Some days, he’s very fatigued, he said. "Some weeks, I don’t go anywhere," he said.

Salzer, 42, said he discovered he has kidney disease 10 years ago, after he had been in an automobile accident. Following the car crash, blood and protein were in his urine. After multiple tests and doctor visits, he had a kidney biopsy administered at Albany Medical Center.

His disease, he said, is hereditary, passed from mothers to their male offspring. He has two daughters, he said, who cannot get the disease but could pass it on to their sons. Of his four brothers and one sister, none have the disease that he knows of, he said.

Salzer has high blood pressure, but does not have diabetes, a disease commonly found in kidney disease patients. His diet consists of low-potassium foods.
"Over the years, I’ve had a lot of kidney infections, and they’re very painful," Salzer said.

Salzer’s doctor placed him on the national waiting list for donated organs five weeks ago, a precautionary measure in case Perry was unable to donate. To remain on the list, Salzer is required to have his blood tested monthly.

According to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, 70,682 people are waiting for a kidney transplant. In New York, 3,152 people with Type O blood — the same blood-type as Salzer — are on the waiting list, according to the network.

To be eligible, a living donor must be 18 to 60 years old, with no high blood pressure or diabetes. Donations from living donors, Salzer said, are the most successful.

If you donate after you die, Salzer said, you can still have an open casket. Organs from one human body, he said, can help 50 people.
"That’s a lot of people," he said.