Celebrating Sinjin’s 9th Anniversary of his kidney transplant

Sinjin is my oldest son he was born with chronic renal failure he needed dialysis in order for him to survive. But before he could have dialysis there were a couple problems, 1) very few baby’s weighing 3lbs and 3 days old have been on dialysis, 2) The Dr didn’t want to operate on a 3lb 3 day old baby and the hospital didn’t have a 14 french (medial sizing??) catheter to use on a baby that small. But another Dr did, in the trunk of his car! In a few short hours Sinjin had a new catheter and ready for his first treatment of dialysis.

After six weeks on the hospital he came home. Before he could come home my wife and I had to be trained to give Sinjin peritoneal dialysis. Once training was complete a nurse came to home to evaluate us on set up and administer dialysis to Sinjin. We did peritoneal dialysis at home at night for the nest two years until his peritoneal cavity was too scared for peritoneal dialysis treatment. Then he went on hemodialysis for the next two and half years. We would take him to St Joseph Hospital in Orange three times a week. We needed to have him there by 6:45 am on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Not problem we had to leave the house by 5:30 am to drive the 38 miles to Orange from Torrance in morning traffic. It got old fast, but you do what is best for your child, NO MATTER WHAT!

On January 2nd 2000 I was talking on the phone to my friend Roger Machado about talking our kids, his daughter and Sinjin, to the movies when I got another call I asked Roger to hold on to answer the other line. It was ULCA transplant team coordinator calling to let us know they have a kidney for Sinjin and we needed to be at UCLA in an hour! I asked her to hold on and click over to the other line to tell Roger I can’t go I call him late and hung up. I give the phone to my wife and let her talk to the coordinator because life just became a blur for me. I don’t remember much between the time the coordinator called and we arrived at UCLA.

Sinjin had been sick that week so he needed his pediatrician to okay him for his transplant. Problem was it was Sunday and the Dr wasn’t on call at the local hospital. After calling his answering service to convince them to page him because it was an emergency and explain by not paging him could cost our son a transplant. A few minutes later the Dr called us back my wife explained to him we just got the call from the transplant team coordinator and we need him to give Sinjin medical clearance for his kidney transplant. He said no problem to meet him at his office in a half hour. We got there about the same time he did as we were walking in to the office he told us he was at brunch with his family and had left them the restaurant to meet us. The Dr’s family was very supportive and understanding why he need to go to the office.

An hour or so later we were at ULCA Medical Center in Westwood preparing for Sinjin’s transplant. After another hour we were told that the transplant would probably not happen that day due to one of the transport teams coming from the east coast had not made it to the hospital in Northern California donor was. They would have to wait until the all the transport teams showed up to harvest all the organs for donation. Two hours later we were told that the transplant would be the next day.

Sinjin was four year eight months old when he received his transplant. Today he is thirteen and doing well.

If you have Fox Sports West today at 3pm watch Lakers Insider at 3pm. There is a segment that was filmed this past summer with Sinjin being interviewed at camp.