THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 14, 1995 TAG: 9505120219
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY REBECCA A. MYERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 197 lines
FOR NEARLY FOUR YEARS, Joyce Stanley-Scott hooked herself up to a dialysis machine for 11 hours and 20 minutes each night.
The 64-year-old woman felt like she had morning sickness 24 hours a day. Her eyesight was as dim as a 15-watt lightbulb.
But days after a kidney transplant, the bulb got brighter. Then the nausea lifted.
The relief, thought Stanley-Scott, will be only temporary.
``It will be back soon,'' she told herself.
But it hasn't come back.
And three weeks after the transplant, Stanley-Scott celebrates a special Mother's Day, all thanks to the ultimate gift her child could give - a donated kidney.
Though two of her five children were suitable donor matches, Stanley-Scott was initially adamant about not accepting an organ from one of her own children.
``I just dreaded having to put (them) through that kind of misery,'' said Stanley-Scott of the two daughters who were matches. ``As I understand it, there's a lot more to the giving than there is to the receiving.''
So the retired school teacher's name was placed on a computer list of patients in need of transplants. And for three and a half years, she hoped an anonymous donor would come through.
It never happened.
In addition to failed kidneys, she suffered from diabetes, hypertension and congestive heart failure.
``I had gone into an extremely deep depression at one point because I thought being dead would be so much better than feeling like this,'' she said.
The daily ritual of dialysis wore on her.
``I finally got to the point that I felt `I just can't do this any longer.' But I knew if I stopped the dialysis, I'd stop my life,'' said Stanley-Scott.
So the Harbor Tower resident decided to accept a kidney from one of her daughters.
But which one?
Both her oldest daughter, Susan Harrell, 42, and her youngest, Kimberly Scott, 31, were suitable matches.
``There's never been anything in the way of rivalry in my family,'' said Stanley-Scott. ``All the youngsters have worked together to foster each other's dreams and ambitions.
``But when this came up, I had the first sign of rivalry.''
Harrell said they made the decision by sitting down and talking about it.
``We asked each other: `Why do you want to give it?'
``I told her that when I was growing up, my mother and I had a period where we didn't get along,'' Harrell said. ``We got to be friends, and I wanted to do something to just show her how much I loved her.''
Stanley-Scott's youngest had a more practical reason: She was better able financially to take time off from work. Kimberly Scott, who lives in Greenville, runs an AIDS advocacy consortium for 10 counties in North Carolina.
Harrell, who lives in Mount Hermon, works in the claims department of Sentara Alternative Delivery Systems and had used all of her vacation and sick leave caring for her ailing mother.
``I felt a little tug back and forth,'' recalled Stanley-Scott with a laugh.
But the decision finally boiled down to who was really the healthiest.
``So I got it,'' Harrell said.
For the year prior to her transplant, Stanley-Scott's health was on a rapid downward spiral. She had a stroke last May, fell and broke her hip in June, then had to fight off a powerful infection while recuperating in the hospital.
And before doctors could schedule her transplant surgery, they encountered even more roadblocks.
``I had trouble with circulation in my left leg, so I needed bypass surgery for that,'' she said. ``Then it didn't heal well, and I had to go back and have it revised.''
That was February. Before that, she'd had a breast cancer scare.
``She had lumps in her breast and had to have breast biopsies,'' said Harrell. ``It seemed like as soon as we would get close, something else would come up.''
The surgery was scheduled for April 19. Then the surgeon fell and hurt himself, and it had to be postponed two days.
``That was really nerve-wracking because we had just gotten checked into the hospital when they came in and said, `You'll have to leave and come back Thursday,' '' said Harrell. ``On Thursday, I told them, `I'm not leaving this time.' ''
The surgery was finally performed on April 21 in adjoining operating suites of Sentara Norfolk General Hospital.
Harrell's surgery lasted six and a half hours. Two hours into it, the doctors started on her mother's surgery.
``When they harvested her kidney, they just ran it next door,'' said Stanley-Scott. ``And because I had seen that episode of `Chicago Hope' where they dropped a heart during transplant surgery, I told them in advance, `Please don't drop my kidney.' ''
But everything went like clockwork, she said.
Four days later Harrell was released from the hospital; six days later her mother went home.
It just feels as if ails have been lifted off me,'' said Stanley-Scott. ``The albatross has dropped from around my neck.''
Harrell, the oldest of Stanley-Scott's five children, can't ever recall seeing her mother in excellent health.
``She used to work, work, work,'' said Harrell. ``She raised us by herself. She'd work two and three jobs, and it seemed like she was always sick.''
Just prior to both kidneys shutting down, Stanley-Scott had retired from 27 years of teaching English with Richmond public schools.
``I was headed for 30 years of teaching, and I also did adjunct work at Virginia Union and Virginia Commonwealth University, but it got to be so difficult trying to manage staying alert and really functioning,'' she said.
A 1946 graduate of I.C. Norcom High School, Stanley-Scott left Portsmouth right out of high school to attend college. She later put college on hold, joined the Air Force, got married and started a family.
In addition to the two daughters who were suitable donors, Stanley-Scott has three other children: Donna Peterson, 39, a lieutenant colonel who teaches electrical engineering at the U.S. Air Force Academy; Mitchell Scott, 37, of Smithfield, an electronics engineer with Virginia Power; and Janet Martin, 36, of Chesapeake, a nurse at the Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters.
``I didn't go back to school to finish until my last child was born,'' said Stanley-Scott. ``My marriage was breaking down. I kept pushing myself because it was sort of anesthesia for me.''
The anesthesia didn't wear off until Stanley-Scott had earned her bachelor's degree from Virginia Union, her master's degree from University of Richmond and her doctorate, which she started at the University of Virginia, from Pacific Western University.
Her doctorate, received in 1989, is in English, language and pedagogy. She is a member of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority.
Until eight months ago, Stanley-Scott lived in Richmond. The oldest daughter tried for years to persuade her mother to move to Portsmouth.
``I just kept watching her get sicker and sicker,'' said Harrell. ``She was living in Richmond by herself, and I decided she needed to move here, but she would not even entertain the thought.''
So Harrell drove to and from Richmond to care for her mother.
``She'd call me and say, `I don't feel well,' and I'd jump in the car and run to Richmond after work,'' said Harrell. ``It was a lot of running back and forth.
``I was taking a lot of time off from work and spending a lot of time away from home,'' she said. ``I'd just moved to a new house, and my husband wasn't seeing a whole lot of me.''
Stanley-Scott finally consented to the move last September.
``I'm coming on back home to my roots,'' said Stanley-Scott, a member of New First Baptist Church Taylorsville.
``I was born in St. Petersburg, Fla., but I was raised right out there in Churchland. I left home about 50 years ago, and I'm just getting back.''
A close-knit family, each child contributes to their mother's well-being, whether it is financial support, nursing or the ongoing moral support she has needed throughout her illness.
``We're all so close because their father left home when they were children, and he never looked back,'' said Stanley-Scott. ``They think about the sacrifices I made when I was working three jobs year-round for a long time. So they're all trying to give back.''
Oldest daughter Harrell decided years ago that she would be available emotionally to her mother at any cost.
``There was a spell when she and I really did not get along,'' said Harrell.
``At one point, she was really sick and the doctor told the family she may not make it through the night,'' she said. ``I was like, if she makes it through the night, I'm going to take care of her.''
Stanley-Scott refers to her oldest daughter as her ``hero.'' But she is grateful for all of her children.
In June, the family is planning a big celebration, to be held in the community room of Harbor Tower. Stanley-Scott lives in a 16th-floor apartment there.
``All five of us will be together again,'' said Harrell. ``The last time we were all home was when Mom had the stroke. That was in June. But she was sick then.''
``This time, we'll all be healthy,'' she said.
But her mother's celebration of life and health won't wait for that family gathering.
Already she is planning a trip to England, a country she fell in love with while studying at Oxford one summer.
It's little things, too.
About a week after the surgery, after she had been discharged from the hospital, Stanley-Scott did something that surprised her.
``I found myself sitting in a chair the other day, singing,'' she said. ``I can't remember when the last time was I sang. I sat down, and I didn't even realize that I was going to sing.
``It just burst forth. And I kept singing.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color cover photo]
[Susan Harrell and Joyce Stanley-Scott]
Staff photos by MARK MITCHELL
Joyce Stanley-Scott, right, is finally free from nearly four years
of nightly dialysis after her oldest daughter, Susan Harrell, 42,
donated a kidney.
Harrell is proud of the pin she was given after the transplant
surgery.
Photos
Susan Harrell
Joyce Stanley-Scott
KEYWORDS: KIDNEY TRANSPLANT by CNB