PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
MARCH 2016
“It was actually a hilarious story. It was the very first
football game at Tech and what’s so funny is that, I mean
I cheered all my life but I never really knew anything
about football,” Janie said. “My mind was always into
basketball. And so, there it was the very first football
game at Tech and Tech was playing UT. And it was
the Urban Cowboy days. John Travolta, oh my gosh,
everybody at Texas Tech looked so silly with all those
bandannas and button-down shirts, tight pants, cowboy
boots up to your knees. It was the stupidest look, but we
were doing it big time.”
When Ken finally showed up he saw Janie “cowgirled
up” and wearing orange, seemingly in support of the
other team. While Ken was also in boots, his fashion was
amiss with the times as he was a “real cowboy,” he said.
His first words to her were, “So, are you a real
cowgirl?”
The two quickly fell in love and married in 1983,
three years later. At the time, Janie was finishing her
degree and Ken was a young civil engineer. That same
year, Ken’s suspicions about having polycystic kidney
disease like his mother were strengthened during his
premarital physical examination. An avid runner and
health enthusiast, Ken ran 1,500 miles a year and was in
top shape, but that wasn’t apparent in his test results.
“My blood pressure was 170 over 104. And I knew
then what I had,” he said. “Because that’s the first
symptom of that disease … . Because your kidneys are
the main controller of blood pressure.”
Despite this knowledge, Ken knew he couldn’t be
diagnosed for fear that it would affect his just-beginning
family and attaining life insurance.
“From ’83 to ’89 I didn’t want to get it diagnosed
because I wanted to get lined up with life insurance and
stuff like that before,” he said. “Because as soon as I was
diagnosed, I couldn’t get insurance.”
The two didn’t attempt conceiving a child until ‘89,
while living back in Hobbs. Their reasoning was they
were so involved in the lives of the youth at their church.
On the urging of the youth minister they served under,
they finally felt it was time. Unfortunately, there was a
twist.
“So we started trying in ’89, nothing was happening,”
Ken said. “We ended up ultimately going to MD
Anderson and meeting with a specialist down there. It
took him about 15 minutes to tell us you guys will never
conceive. … We can’t have kids.”
The couple decided to adopt and in 1992, after
moving from New Mexico to Texas and being told it
could take a decade or more to adopt, they brought home
their newborn daughter Abby. While having a successful
adoption was one light for Ken and Janie, there was
another miracle to come from not being able to conceive.
That miracle wasn’t discovered until Ken first began
preparing for a transplant, when the couple learned that
because Janie never became pregnant that she was a
more viable organ donor.
Nearly two decades later in 2009, Ken’s kidney
function finally dropped below 100 percent and by the
end of 2014, his function hovered around 30 percent. But
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the gradually developing disease can drop off quickly in
some patients, and that’s just what it did with Ken.
“It went from 30 percent [in December and by] April it
was right at 10 percent,” he said. “November/December
of last year to April, it went that fast. When you get to 10
percent, 15 percent, what the doctors tell you is ‘we’re just
going to monitor you a lot.’”
The reason for the constant monitoring is potential
imbalances in electrolytes, Ken said, which can result
in a heart attack or a stroke. While his electrolytes
remained stable, his kidney function continued to decline.
Monitoring, however, unexpectedly became pivotal in
keeping Ken from having to go on dialysis — another key
factor in his successful transplant.
The physician Ken was seeing at the time of his
downturn pushed for dialysis and said he had plenty of
time to start treatment. Concerned for his health, Ken and
his wife began searching for a second opinion.
“[The physician] said, ‘Well, here’s your numbers and
see you in four months. Well, I knew when I looked at
the numbers — I had researched it enough through the
years — I knew I didn’t have four months,” Ken said. “So,
my childhood best friend, it’s a girl named Jennifer Sims,
she married a doctor. She and I went to Baylor together.
She married a guy who became an anesthesiologist named
Kennon Hughens; he’s at Baylor in Fort Worth. And, so we
called them and said, ‘Hey, kidneys are failing, we need
to figure out about a transplant program.’ Just so happens,
his sister has the same disease. She has polycystic kidney
disease.”
Hughens pointed Ken to his hospital’s transplant
program, and by August Ken received his kidney transplant
— another miracle, he and his wife agreed, as most
transplants take at least a year.
While Ken had seven living donors come forth, five of
which were healthy enough, his wife, who was first on the
list, was a match.
“The chances of that, of her being a match at all [are
unlikely],” he said.
Sharing the same blood type and having a similar
anatomical size, the only thing in the couple’s way was
time.
“So, they rushed her through the program,” Ken said.
“There were a couple of little setbacks, but God just
overcame all of them and we got to the point that we got a
phone call in July saying let’s go, we’re doing it. And they
scheduled the date for August 18th and we did it.”
The kidney worked immediately and Ken is on minimal
anti-rejection medications. Of his successful surgery, Ken
and his wife said there is no explanation other than God’s
grace.
“We’re not any better people than anybody else,” he
said. “We’re just sinners in need of grace, and God, for
some reason, has chosen to give us grace. I know there’s
a lot of people out there who need a kidney and will read
[an article like this], and they don’t have this story and
that breaks my heart, to be honest with you. I met a lot of
people at the transplant clinic that are having a tough time
with this and I don’t know why I am not, other than God’s
just granted that I have that grace.”