Chuck Crews’ Story

Chuck Crews is an altrustic living kidney donor, estate planning attorney, and board member for SCTF. The original was printed in the Post and Courier (here).

Commentary: When a man who gave away his kidney met a woman who received someone else's

By Jeannie Brown

Aug 22, 2024

Minutes into an estate planning meeting with attorney Chuck Crews, I knew he understood precious time. He told me he had given a stranger an altruistic kidney donation a few months earlier.

Chuck had considered becoming a living donor since his second cousin received a lung transplant 12 years ago. He was tested to donate kidneys over the years but did not match the individuals he knew who needed one. He was familiar with the complications that chronic kidney disease causes, and time became very important. Chuck told Chesley Machado, living donor coordinator at Prisma/MUSC Transplant, that he just wanted to help. She asked him to be a living donor to someone he had never met. He agreed, and the process began.

I told him my story. I had very little precious time when I began my search for a living donor. I have polycystic kidney disease, and it was slowly killing me. PKD is a genetic disease that causes fluid-filled cysts to grow and multiply uncontrollably in the kidneys, which led me to kidney failure. Polycystic kidney disease affects the entire body, and I have had four cranial aneurysms, liver disease and cysts that have grown on other organs and caused serious illnesses. There is no cure for PKD. I began dialysis treatments seven days a week.

I needed a kidney transplant. I wanted the elusive gold standard living donor kidney, which would possibly save me from dialysis, shorten waitlist time and improve transplant outcomes. I say “elusive” because there is not enough supply to meet the demand. According to donatelife.net, while more than 100,000 people in the United States need a kidney transplant, only 6,953 were performed last year. The kidney is the most common organ needed, and 17 people die every day waiting for a kidney. United Network for Organ Sharing advises that the shortage of kidneys is considered a public health crisis. Out of 600,000 polycystic kidney disease patients, more than half will go into kidney failure. Time rushes by with no kidney in sight. I began my time on the waitlist.

Chuck Crews had waited 12 years to give someone a kidney. He was as determined as ever. In April 2024, a match was found. Surgery was scheduled, and his living-donor kidney was placed in the stranger he had never met. Chuck met his recipient, Marcus, on the day of surgery. He describes the joyful look on Marcus' and his sister's faces. Chuck knew he would do it again. He quoted John Bunyan: “You have not lived today until you do something for someone who can never repay you.”

Chuck says he has felt an inner peace he never had before becoming a living donor. Marcus has his second chance at life, and he thanked Chuck for the life-saving kidney. Chuck's gift to Marcus will send a wave of awareness and hope to those who need a transplant.

Time and circumstances brought Chuck and me together. I knew nothing about his desire to be a living donor, and he knew nothing about my life with polycystic kidney disease. With one sentence, our lives were changed. Today, we are all doing well, but time is still precious. Become a living donor or an organ donor on your driver's license. The 100,000 people who need a kidney may have very little time left.

As for me, five years ago, a deceased 22-year-old man provided me with a kidney — and the gift of precious time.

Jeannie Brown of Easley is a kidney transplant recipient and an advocacy champion for the Polycystic Kidney Disease Foundation.