My Kidney Donation Story: Rick Rabe

My wife Julie was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease at an early age and has lived with the disease for almost fifty years. In 2024, when her nephrologist suggested she start the transplantation process, I went through the testing. I was 69 at the time.

It was a little stressful going through the process because I was afraid they would reject me. After the testing, I know more about myself than I ever thought I would know. Statistically, donors have a lower morbidity rate because the medical team catches more in the screening.  

In January 2024, they told me I was good to go. She and I were not tissue-compatible, so the team had discussed doing a kidney exchange. UMass had just joined the National Kidney Registry, and at some point they mentioned the Voucher Program. 

Donating through the Voucher Program made sense because Julie would be able to take care of me after my donation surgery, then when the time came, I would be well enough to care for her.  

I was activated at the end of January. I got a call a week later saying they had found a recipient. My surgery was February 6, 2024. It was a bit of a scramble to get all the pre-surgery things done. I was a bit nervous. I kept thinking the transplant team was going to call me and say they had found something, and it wouldn’t work. That was more of a fear than the surgery.  

They told us we had to be there at 3 a.m. and we live an hour from the hospital. But from there on, it went very smoothly. The transplant team was great. I had five laparoscopic ports and one four-and-a-half-inch incision. 

Five days after my donation (I had to stay a little longer than usual because my system was not waking up correctly), my surgeon came in and said they just talked with the transplant team, and everything is going really well with the recipient.  

I kind of lost it right there. The team was all there, and we were all crying tears of joy. That was something I didn’t expect. I was so focused on getting a kidney for my wife that I’d forgotten that someone else was getting my kidney and would benefit from my donation. 

After getting home I recovered relatively quickly. They told me to expect about two to four months of recovery, and it ended up being about three. 

Julie got her kidney in May 2024.

About the Author

Rick lives in Western Massachusetts with his wife Julie and their two cats Mojo and Zelda. They have three children and four grandchildren. Rick has had a varied career that includes computer programming, outdoor adventure educator, youth leader, systems engineer, CEO, CFO, Global IT Manager for Saint-Gobain, professional bagpiper, commercial drone pilot, IT Manager for UMASS Medical School in Liberia, West Africa, and as a minister for United Methodist Churches. His work in Liberia began when he, as a volunteer, and his wife went to work with the local medical school in Monrovia and then a year later when he went back as a UMASS employee to establish the National Reference Laboratory System for the Liberian government during the Ebola outbreak. “When you experience the love and compassion of people who have so little, giving everything in such dire circumstances to someone who needs it, it changes you,” says Rick of his three years working in Liberia. Rick is committed to spreading the word about living donation and how such an act can change a person’s life including the donor.