Glass is Half Full|Stained-glass artist has new outlook on life after kidney transplant

By Brett Dalton
The Journal Staff
Second chances are often a necessity in life. Nobody's perfect, as they say, and an opportunity to start anew may be just what a person needs to turn his or her life around.For some people, however, second chances are a privilege - a gift that can change one's life forever.Randy High, of Blue Springs, said his second chance was more than a necessity, more than a privilege - it was a miracle, and he and his wife Leslie could not be more grateful for it.High spent two days last week at the St. Paul's Episcopal Church on the corner of Fifth and Green streets in Lee's Summit. For the past three months, High and his friend, Bill Cosgrove, have been working to craft handmade stained glass windows for the church. High said some stained glass workers have found many shortcuts throughout the years to make their trade a little easier and a little cheaper. But cutting corners isn't High's style. He said he'd rather do it the old-fashioned way, which to him, results in a better product when it's all said and done. But it's not easy."Doing it old school is all hard," High said. "Every bit of it is hard work."But High will be the first to admit that installing 40 stained glass windows in a small church in the suburbs pales in comparison to the trials and tribulations he battled through five to six years ago.Lifelong conditionHigh, 54, said he's battled kidney disease since he was a child. He was diagnosed with Bright's Disease, which is described as chronic inflammation of the blood vessels in the kidneys, according to www.medicinenet.com. High said he was aware of his kidney condition and said he knew it may one day cause him some serious problems. Then one Saturday evening in February 2002, High finally received the news he knew may one day come."It got to a point where I didn't feel good, so I finally went in for a checkup," High said. "Then my doctor was moved to call me at home on a Saturday night. She told me I needed to get in to her office on that next Monday to start dialysis, because (my kidneys) finally quit."Leslie High said the doctor's phone call was a life-altering moment."Up until that point," she said, "ignorance was bliss. Before then, we thought he was just tired or working too hard. Our lives literally changed with that phone call."The night the Highs received the phone call, Leslie turned to her husband and told him she was going to donate one of her kidneys to him. But at the time, Randy said he didn't want to hear that kind of talk."Leslie had always said all along that she was going to be my donor," Randy said. "But I always thought, 'I'm a man,' and I wasn't going to allow someone to sacrifice like that for me. It makes you very uncomfortable to think about that."On the Monday following the doctor's call, Randy started the type of dialysis - a treatment that serves as an artificial replacement for failed kidneys - he could receive at home. He said he was on dialysis for 10 hours per day, most of them during the nighttime hours when he was asleep. High said life on dialysis wasn't the easiest he'd had it, but it was acceptable, as it was keeping him alive - or so he thought.'The final straw'On Oct. 6, 2002, Randy High was at home with his wife. He had just finished making her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and the two were standing near each other having a normal conversation. Without warning, some-thing near Randy's heart went drastically wrong and he suffered what's known in the medical field as Sudden Cardiac Death."One minute you're standing, the next minute you're dead on the floor," Leslie said. "And that's how it was."Because his kidneys didn't function properly, High said platelets built up in the blood stream, clogging one of his heart's main blood vessels. Blood could no longer reach one side of his heart and he died in an instant.Fortunately, Leslie said paramedics were stationed just down the road from their home in Blue Springs. She said they rushed over and were able to eventually revive her husband using defibrillators. But it wasn't soon enough to prevent word from circulating that Randy had indeed passed away."I had already told my wife when she was out of town that Leslie was a widow," said Cosgrove, who has been the Highs' neighbor since 2000. "Then I came home that night and she wasn't."After being resuscitated, doctors performed heart surgery on Randy High and he remained in intensive care for 18 days. High said he has no recollection of those 18 days."But what I found out was life on dialysis, while it was acceptable, it wasn't really great," he said. "I had lifelong kidney disease, but ultimately that was the final straw."The giftMonths after her husband had literally been given new life, Leslie High, who works as the director of philanthropy at Truman Medical Center Lakewood, got the chance to make good on the promise she had been making to him for quite some time. Instead of living on dialysis, Randy High decided it was time for a transplant. And as it turned out, his wife was a perfect match."So basically after doing a lot of research, and talking a little more to Leslie, they did it," High said. Since July 30, 2003, Randy High has been using his wife's left kidney. He said it was surgically placed in the front and on the right side of his body, as doctors opted not to remove and replace his non-functioning kidneys. According to Leslie, she became one of 800 spouses in 2003 to donate an organ to a husband or wife.Leslie said it took some convincing on her part to get her husband to agree to take one of her kidneys, but added it was "the best thing I've ever done." She also said donating a kidney was much easier than witnessing her husband's near-death experience less than a year earlier."I would go through 10 kidney transplants if I didn't have to relive that day," she said. Randy, who also had a defibrillator surgically installed in his chest, said he hasn't had any major health issues since the transplant, although he has become insulin resistant since the surgery.And since the Highs' transplant was a success they, along with Cosgrove and other members of the Rotary Club of Eastern Independence, have been deeply involved with the Donate Life program, a national effort to encourage others to be organ donors.Randy High said their ultimate goal is to get Rotarians throughout the country and the world to sign up electronically to be organ donors."If we could sign up just the Rotarians, we wouldn't ever have an organ shortage in the world," Randy said. Their effort has paid off during the last couple years, as they have gotten more than 1,000 Rotarians to sign up as organ donors. They also had a chance to reach more than 18,000 Rotarians at the Rotary International Convention in Salt Lake City, Utah, in February 2007.Life is good Leslie High and Bill Cosgrove don't mind saying that Randy High "wasn't a people person" before that fateful day in October 2002. Cosgrove said High spent much of his time near the back of the shops he was working in and rarely moseyed up front near the crowds. But death can change a person, Randy said, and it certainly had an everlasting effect on him. "It made me appreciate things a lot more," he said. "I'd say to a very large degree, I lost my temper. I'm much more tolerant of people."Cosgrove said High is now "the most mellow man I know." "He calms people down just being with him," Cosgrove said, "because he's so appreciative of what's going on around him." The whole ordeal also had an effect on Leslie High. Before the transplant, Leslie said she considered herself somewhat of a "wimp." But after donating a kidney, she's realized she may be a little tougher than she gave herself credit for. "Now I know I'm a strong woman," she said. "There's just something that comes up from you and you do what you have to do. And I can do it. I now know that I can." Randy High's battle with his serious kidney condition forced him into early retirement from the auto industry. After recovering from the transplant, he began working in stained glass, a trade he began learning in the 1970s. High said it's more of a "dedicated hobby" than a job. He said he's installed stained glass on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, in private homes and at TMC Lakewood. Along with enjoying the trade, High said installing stained glass windows provides him the opportunity to give back to the society of which he's more glad than ever to be a part. "I figure I'm here now when I shouldn't be," he said. "So if I can do something to help some people, make them happy and occupy my time, I think that's a good deal." For more information about the Donate Life program, visit its Web site at www.donatelife.net.