Hello. I am Alex Esteverena, a happy new owner of a brand new functioning kidney (since Nov. 1, 2001) and second chance at life thanks to my kid brother, Martin, and UCSF Medical Center. As a brief background, I am a 33-year-old married father of twin daughters who has had declining kidney function since roughly 1993.

As my lab scores began to significantly decline, I was fortunate to be referred in 1998 to Dr. Rodney Omachi, a highly recognized clinical professor of nephrology on UCSF's Renal Faculty Practice. Working with Dr. Omachi, we monitored and perhaps slowed my declining kidney function, but it was clear that I would soon need to begin hemodialysis or undergo a kidney transplant.

Once the decision to go for a transplant was made, I was introduced to Linda Moczkowski, coordinator for the USCF Kidney Transplant Service. From the beginning, through many tests, concerns, questions, changes, insurance approvals, and scheduling of people in different cities, Linda and UCSF's pre-transplant "work-up" team were outstanding. My entire family clearly felt the benefit of working with UCSF's team primarily because they have simply "seen the movie" so many times already. This has been a life-altering event for my family and it gave us great comfort to be taken through this process by people who have been around transplants enough to consider it a "routine miracle."

When the most appropriate surgeons for my case were selected, we consulted with them on a few occasions and were ready to go! Dr. Chris Friese performed laparoscopic surgery on my brother; lucky for him, as I believe Dr. Friese has performed over 100 of these cutting-edge procedures. My surgery was performed by Dr. Ryutaro Hirose: lucky for me as he has great experience at performing living related transplants and had performed four such surgeries in the prior week!

The surgery went very well and then our recovery began. From the doctors who regularly checked on us, to the nurses who worked hard to care for us, yet also encouraged us to get up and walk for a more rapid recovery, the experience was great. After five days in the hospital, I came home to recover (my wife is a SAINT) for the next several weeks. I was healing, getting accustomed to the regimen of medications critical to avoiding rejection and beginning to interface with the people who will monitor my condition long term — the UCSF Kidney Transplant Clinic. Right after transplant, the folks at the clinic played cooperative roles to get me prepared for seeing the doctors who really ensured my recovery is on track and that the specific medications and dosages are fine-tuned, based both on my feedback and the ongoing lab results.

Sometimes my friends say, "Wow, this must have been a tough thing to go through." I candidly respond that, although having kidney failure and a transplant are not at all trivial, I have been fortunate to have every advantage that anyone could ask for in going through the process. Our biggest advantage was to have access to the skill, energy, and care of the UCSF Medical Center team. For that, we are very grateful.

Story written in 2001.