This article was first printed in the Morrison County Record.
By By Sheila Bergren
Longest living kidney transplant recipient lives in Little Falls
About 45 years have passed since DuWayne Virnig of Little Falls received a kidney transplant through the Hennepin Healthcare’s kidney transplant program. Now at age 82, he is the longest living kidney transplant recipient from Hennepin Healthcare, said Media Relations Manager Christine Hill.
At the time of the transplant, Virnig was 37, married to the love of his life, Lottie, and together, they had two children, Jon Virnig and Lora (Virnig) Cracraft.
“The transplant offered DuWayne the gift of raising his family, living his life, working and sharing his journey, so others have hope,” said Ellen Bernadson, who works as a nurse practitioner in the surgery department at Hennepin Healthcare and specializes in the care of kidney transplant patients.
In fact, it was Virnig’s illness that sparked Bernadson’s interest in the specialty of kidney care. She was studying medicine at the time Virnig began to receive care for his failing kidneys. Bernadson was also Lottie’s cousin, Hill said.
DuWayne’s journey in life began June 24, 1940. Born to Paul and Lucy Virnig, he and his siblings, Roger, Carol, Nan, Paul, Pat and Geri, grew up on a farm west of Little Falls.
“It was five miles from Bank Square. We walked it every once in a while, so we had to know,” said Sr. Carol Virnig, who is a Franciscan Sister.
DuWayne graduated from the Little Falls High School in 1958. Having heard the story told by her parents of how they first met, Lora said both DuWayne and Lottie were involved in youth ministry groups. Back then, Lottie lived in St. Joseph. At one point, the two youth groups merged and went to a Christian Youth Conference in Illinois. Several years later, the two married June 3, 1967.
While life on the farm was tough and hard work, life was good. Lora said her dad was able to function well for about a decade until it was discovered that he had kidney disease. What led to the discovery in the first place, said son-in-law, Rich Cracraft, was DuWayne’s desire to join the United States Air Force. However, an analysis of his urine showed high levels of protein, which is an indicator that something may be amiss with a person’s kidneys, he said.
“I think it was exposure to chemicals on the farm or when he worked for (Northwestern) Bell, the telephone company,” Rich said.
When DuWayne became ill, life as they knew it changed. Lora recalls not being able to be in the Girl Scouts anymore, as the meetings were on the same day that her dad went to the hospital for dialysis. DuWayne also lost a lot of weight.
“He was really, really thin, because he had to watch what he ate. He couldn’t have a lot of salt, couldn’t have a lot of water. He was on a very strict diet,” Lora said.
Reminiscing, this was very evident during the hot summer days, Lora said. Her dad loved to mow the grass and while most people would be able to drink plenty of water to hydrate, DuWayne couldn’t. Instead he sucked on an ice cube, but as small as ice cubes can be, Lora said he could only have a limited amount of ice cubes per day. That was how strict his diet was.
Knowing that their brother wouldn’t survive without a kidney transplant, both Sr. Carol and Geri offered to give him one of theirs. As their bodies are just about the same, siblings are often a match. As it turned out, Sr. Carol was a near perfect match, she said.
Becoming his donor required Sr. Carol to go through extensive preparation, mentally and physically. As is still practice today, the doctors simply wanted her well informed of the risks of being a donor and more. The process that was in place took several months, she said.
A few months before DuWayne’s transplant surgery, Sr. Carol was sent on missions in Peru. She went, knowing she’d return stateside in a few months or so for the transplant surgery. Since she lived on an altitude of 1,500 feet in Peru, Sr. Carol said her brother’s doctor wanted her body to have time to acclimate to the altitude the surgery would be done at, as well.
During the month leading up to the anticipated transplant surgery, DuWayne’s kidney function declined severely and he was placed on dialysis.
Sr. Carol said after DuWayne had been on dialysis for six weeks, he received a phone call that there was another matching kidney available for him. He had 15 minutes to accept or decline. Initially, Sr. Carol said, DuWayne considered declining it, since he was already a match to her. However, Lottie encouraged him to call his parents and it was ultimately them who convinced him to accept the kidney.
“Dad said, ‘Listen, take that cadaver kidney. If you reject it, you got Carol, and if you reject hers, you have Geri,’” Sr. Carol said.
Lora said given the fact that many people are on dialysis for months or years, her dad was on dialysis for only six weeks before he had his kidney transplant. All they knew about the kidney donor was that it came from an 18-year-old man, who had tragically died in a motorcycle accident when a car had turned left into his right of way. Lora said his fatal accident has been a reminder to the family of how fragile life can be, even when precautions are taken, such as by wearing a helmet, which the young man had. It has also influenced their sons to always wear a helmet when riding a motorcycle, Lora and Rich said.
DuWayne’s kidney transplant surgery went well. While he did have some signs of rejection in the very first stages, Lora said, it passed. Since then, DuWayne has had an additional 30 major and minor surgeries as a result of the medications he was given to keep his body from rejecting the transplanted kidney.
“It broke down his joints, so shoulders, hips, back and neck. He’s on his fourth set of hips, first and second set of shoulders and numerous back surgeries,” Rich said.
After DuWayne went through his second hip replacement surgery, he was allowed to take home the set of titanium steel hips the surgeon had removed, Lora said.
Whenever DuWayne went in for a surgery, the family gathered in the waiting room for the news the surgery had been successful. Eventually it became somewhat of a family joke that if he was doing well after he woke up, he’d ask for mashed potatoes, Lora said.
Looking back, the kidney transplant and other surgeries really gave DuWayne a second chance. Not just to live, but to once again enjoy things that enriched his quality of life, Lora said. One of DuWayne’s greatest enjoyments was rollerskating.
“He’d dance on skates. He was also a big square dancer,” Lora said.
Being as active as DuWayne was, Lora said, was also the reason he wore out his hips so many times. His first hip replacement was done in June 1979, a year after the kidney transplant. A year or two later, he had his second hip replacement, Lora said.
Throughout the years, DuWayne has been adamant about taking really good care of his new kidney. Given the fact that the average long-term survival of kidneys from live donors is 12 to 20 years and seven to eight years for those who received them from cadaver donors, Lora said DuWayne having had his for 45 years speaks for itself.
“The fact that he has gone three times as long is significant, but he’s kind of paid the price for it, too, like by not necessarily having pain medication every time he had surgery or something like that. But he did it because he knew that if the kidney died and he couldn’t get another one, then dialysis would essentially be a death sentence in the long term,” Lora said.
Throughout his life, DuWayne had very much of an engineering mindset, Rich said.
“He could basically fix anything that was mechanical or electrical,” he said.
Rich recalls the time the stereo he had bought when he served in the United States Marine Corp started smoking.
“I quickly shut it off and I told DuWayne about it. He was like, ‘Oh, give it to me’ and I gave it to him. It took him a while, but he found used parts and put them in. That stereo worked great up until I stopped using it,” he said.
While Sr. Carol was a missionary in Peru, as well as in Bolivia, DuWayne mailed her different things to make life a little easier for her and the others in South America. Once, he took apart a gas-powered lawnmower, placed all of the parts in plastic bags and labeled each and shipped them to her with instructions on how to assemble it. Sr. Carol recalls another sister and the priest, who is now a bishop, laying out all the pieces on the living room table to put it together.
“You should have seen how happy our workman was when he could push it along,” she said.
Growing up and throughout her life, Lora said her dad was always resourceful. She recalls her first bicycle.
“He went around to people’s trash, found parts, painted it up, gave me a brand new seat and made it look all fancy. That was my first bike,” she said.
One day he also brought home a boombox for her.
“Someone was going to throw it away. It was in the trash and all it needed was a little paper clip to hold the dial,” she said.
DuWayne worked for Sears, Roebuck and Company for about 35 years. Lora said that when he underwent his last hip surgery, he was told by the doctor that he shouldn’t be working anymore because of the stress it caused on the hip. There wasn’t enough bone left to attach a fifth set of hips, Lora said.
Since going into people’s homes increased the risk of getting an infection, Lora said her dad “set up shop” in the basement of their home, where he fixed things and more.
Since DuWayne had a kidney transplant and went through many surgeries, Lora said the family always kind of anticipated that of the two, he would be the first one who died. However, Lottie died from fallopian tube cancer in 2018.
Lora said her dad took his wife’s death very hard. In fact, since then, it’s like he’s kind of lost the will to live. The two were married for 50 years, she said.
Before DuWayne returned to Little Falls, he stayed at Epiphany Assisted Living in Coon Rapids.
“Epiphany was a nice facility,” Rich said.
While the facility in Coon Rapids was closer to Lora and Rich, they weren’t able to visit him as often as they wanted to.
“We have two sons with autism, I have autism, as well, so there’s a lot of stress in our house,” Rich said.
Since DuWayne wasn’t getting as many visitors either, Lora and Richard decided it was time for her dad to return to his roots. More importantly, he would be closer to his sisters, brother, and other people he grew up with, who would be able to visit him more frequently, Lora said.
Since the move to Highland Senior living in Little Falls, DuWayne has had many visitors. Rich said the move has been good for him and Lora, as well. The hour drive, one way, gives them time to enjoy some 80s music on and uninterrupted conversations. Besides their life with children, the couple is also facing the health issues of Rich’s mom and the grief that comes with seeing a loved one decline.
“Coming up here is sort of like a little respite getaway for us. It’s something we’ve come to enjoy,” he said.
Recently, Hennepin Healthcare celebrated its 60th anniversary since its Kidney Transplant Program performed the first kidney transplant in the Midwest. Since then, thousands of patients with kidney disease have found new life thanks to receiving a kidney transplant.
“We have the privilege of witnessing remarkable transformations almost every day,” said Dr. John Silkensen, medical director for Hennepin Healthcare’s Kidney Transplant Program. “We care for patients who are pre-transplant and post-transplant. Receiving a healthy kidney after months — maybe years — of dialysis is a game-changer. We celebrate these successes with our patients and their families, and now we’re marking 60 years of innovative leadership this program has made for transplant care and research. Until kidney disease can be eradicated, we will continue to provide the most comprehensive, state-of-the-art care for our patients.”
