National Donor Sabbath
November 13-15, 2015
Donor Family Member and Kidney Transplant Recipient Keeps the Faith
Andreas Price knows what it means to give the gift of life as
well as what it means to receive it.
The youngest of three children, Andreas was diagnosed at the
age of 15 with chronic glomerulonephritis, a type of kidney
disease.
“I woke up on March 3, 1980 with a terrible headache and
blurred double vision, and then had a seizure.”
Andreas was rushed to the hospital, where he learned that his
kidneys had completely shut down—he was started on
dialysis that day. For the next five years, Andreas endured an
increasingly intensive regimen, which ultimately involved
three-and-a-half-hour treatments, four times a week.
Despite his treatments, Andreas was able to attend the
University of Louisville and to answer the call to the ministry;
but, after five years of dialysis, Andreas was put on the transplant waiting list.
Three years later, on Christmas morning 1988, the entire Price family was in church for
services. Andreas, now 23 years old and still on the transplant waiting list, was singing his
mother, Nancy’s, favorite song in the choir when the unimaginable happened: Nancy suffered a
fatal aneurism and became a donor.
“My mom was a teacher in the public school system. She had impacted so many lives over the
years, and she was such a caring, giving person. Needless to say, it was a rough night, and it
changed the tenor of Christmas then and now, but being able to give someone else such a
selfless gift helped us with our healing and grieving process.”
There was a discussion about whether or not Andreas should receive one of his mother’s
kidneys, but because he had a cold, he was ineligible to undergo major surgery.
On May 26, 1989, five months after his mother’s donation and nine years after his diagnosis,
Andreas received the call that a suitable kidney had been donated. He still thinks about his
donor and how his gift has blessed him.
“My transplant allowed me to work full-time in the corporate world and as a minister, and I was
also able to graduate with a second bachelor’s degree in theology and then return to school for
a master’s degree in divinity.”
As Andreas educates people about the power of registering as a donor, he often encounters
religious concerns about donation.
“Some people believe that you need everything God gave you to be allowed into heaven. I
usually tell them that if that were the case, then we’d have to have all our hair and teeth, or we
wouldn’t get into heaven. Donation is the gift of life and there is no greater gift.”
Story provided courtesy of Kentucky Circuit Court Clerks’ Trust for Life