'If you ever need a kidney ... I got you'

By Priscilla A. Greear - Florida Catholic

MIAMI | New York native Dr. Shawn Fibkins entered the medical profession to help people after a miserable stint in investment banking. Then 16 years ago, after a routine exam, the Harvard graduate discovered that he had inherited polycystic kidney disease from his father.

Fibkins was shocked, having grown up healthy. He even pitched on Harvard’s baseball team. “It was devastating for me because now I was in the medical field and I knew what that disease meant for people: trips to the hospital with ruptured brain aneurysms and kidney failure.”

Beginning residency the next year at Jackson Memorial Hospital, he was encouraged by his wife to attend an Emmaus retreat at St. John Neumann parish in Miami. There, the practicing Catholic experienced spiritual transformation and met John Fernandez. The two became fast friends, sharing meals on old pews at a locals sports grill.

Fibkins told Fernandez about his incurable kidney disease and fears of leaving his twin boys fatherless. When he said his kidneys would eventually fail, his friend casually replied, “If you ever need a kidney, let me know man, I got you.”

A few months later, Fibkins was diagnosed with an aneurysm and traveled to the University of Massachusetts for a procedure to prevent rupture by a world-renowned neuro-interventional radiologist. His community of Emmaus “brothers” rallied to support him, including Jorge Rolo and Fernando Martinez. “They flew up on their own dime and prayed over me and my wife and parents at the hospital in Worcester.”

Back home, Fernandez and others prayed at St. John Neumann. As Fibkins prepared, he surrendered completely to Christ, mindful that his father had died of PKD at 35.

 

OK WITH DYING 

“As a Christian we are always asked to give everything up to God and put him in the driver’s seat and let the Lord guide us. And I didn’t really know what that meant until I went through the aneurysm scare,” he recalled. “I chose that path and said if this is my time to go then take me and I was OK with dying, actually. That kind of brought me a peace.”

But the doctor discovered it wasn’t actually an aneurysm. “If I had gone somewhere else, he said that they would have tried to treat it and (I) would’ve had a really bad outcome. So I was definitely in the right place. I feel God kind of pushed me along there and things kind of aligned,” recalled Fibkins, now 47.

Fernandez, now 44, said he felt a call from God to leave the corporate sector to become director of religious education at St. John Neumann. Fibkins became godfather to his first child, Priscilla, and moved to Parkland to start his practice, but the friends remained close.

Then, in 2017, Fibkins’ kidney function heavily deteriorated. He gained 50 pounds and vomited about three hours every morning. “You feel like your body is just poisoned,” he said, adding that even for those on dialysis, “you still feel terrible.”

He registered at Jackson’s Miami Transplant Institute. Family members and colleagues volunteered to donate a kidney but didn’t qualify as matches. Always “ridiculously healthy,” Fernandez quickly volunteered and matched, telling his friend, “Don’t make a big deal about it.”

But Fernandez still had to tell his wife. “She initially said, ‘You can’t do that, what about the girls, what about me?’ But mid-sentence then she said, ‘If you needed it, I would hope somebody would do it.’”

 

‘DO I HAVE THE GUTS?’

That yes meant everything to Fibkins, regardless of the outcome. “It is hard to describe what it is like to have a friend willing to lay down a piece of his life so that yours may continue.”

Within a month, on Aug. 30, 2018, both checked into Jackson for the operations. “It was one of those rubber meets the road moments,” recalled Fernandez, whose brother is a permanent deacon at St. John Neumann. “No greater love says the Lord than to give your life for a friend. But are you willing? It’s very easy to teach it, to read it, to proclaim it, but do I have the guts to do this?”

It also was the quintessential lesson for his daughters. “I hate the idea of calling myself selfless but as a parent we want our kids to do the right thing and we teach them to do the right thing by doing the right thing ourselves.”

Likewise, Fibkins prepared peacefully for round two. “If your faith is 90 percent there and you’re 10 yards away from the end zone, that’s not what God wants from you. He wants you in the end zone, he wants all of it,” he reflected. “That’s the only way you can be really fulfilled. That’s what I’ve learned going through this and I feel this time around was almost easier because I’ve already been through that spiritual submission.”

After a seven-hour surgery, Fibkins woke up with new life. “John didn’t just help me out. I feel like I’m cured. I walk around, I’m healthy. I do everything I was doing before I got sick. It’s like a miracle.”

And he was able to give back to his friend sooner than expected, when Fernandez lost his beloved, devout parents. On Fernandez’s first night home from the hospital, his father died suddenly of a heart attack. The next month, Fernandez’s 90-year old mother was struck by a car and died.

“Shawn called daily, he came down a few times,” Fernandez said. “Having this kind of support was what got me through two very rough months.”

 

BACK AT WORK

Following their surgeries, Fernandez was back to work in a week and Fibkins in three months, neither with complications. While the radiologist takes four daily doses of medicine, he said he now feels closer to his family, inhales life more deeply, and empathizes more profoundly with patients facing kidney failure and chemotherapy. “I try to make the experience a comforting one for them.”

A member of Mary Help of Christians parish, Fibkins also feels inspired to speak on the safety of kidney donation — in eternal gratitude for Fernandez. “I drag John through this because I feel if we save one life it’s worth his grumbling,” he said. “There are so many people that need it. Lives can be saved. And that’s a very Christian act, to give part of yourself.”

Fernandez said he can’t believe that he never even took pain killers and hopes his quick recovery will encourage potential donors.

“There’s no denying that God put us together at the Emmaus retreat for a purpose,” he said, as the two reflected together recently on their journey of faith, fellowship and healing.

“You and I are very different people. We grew up different: white guy from New York, Long Island; Cuban immigrant kid from Miami. Look, here we are. It’s an odd couple but thank God for you,” he told his friend. “Maybe this is a step in a longer journey for both of us.”

FIND OUT MORE 

• For information on kidney donation visit donortodonor.com or jacksonhealth.org/transplant/living-donors.