Bill Hoene will be put on a waiting list at the end of this month to receive a kidney.
In the mean time, he is seeking a local donor to provide him with a kidney.
Hoene, 64, Warsaw, is married to Nellie, and they have six children, 10 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. Hoene’s grandchildren have been tested to donate their kidney to their grandfather, but their blood types aren’t a match.
Hoene said a kidney donor for him must have an O blood type and be 18 to 65 years old. People have two kidneys, but can live with one.
Hoene is self-employed as owner of Hoene Tiling Inc., selling drain tiling for the Leesburg-based company. Hoene, a diabetic, is currently on kidney dialysis at home.
It was two years ago he went to Kosciusko Community Hospital because he wasn’t feeling well. He had shortness of breath, and was retaining excess water.
He was diagnosed with congestive kidney and heart failure.
Hoene said he thought he had bronchitis originally.
He was put on medication to help get rid of the excess water that was by his lungs and heart.
He was 62 years old at the time, and has had diabetes for 40 years.
“I knew what was causing the problems, it was my diabetes,” Hoene said.
He is on peritoneal dialysis, and drains his body fluids every day to get rid of the waste. He has been on dialysis for the past 10-1/2 months.
Peritoneal dialysis is a treatment for patients with severe chronic kidney disease. The process uses the patient's peritoneum in the abdomen as a membrane across which fluids and dissolved substances (electrolyte, urea, glucose, albumin and other small molecules) are exchanged from the blood.
Hoene said his kidney failure causes exhaustion.
He returned from a fishing trip last year, and that was when he started on dialysis and doctors discovered he had been exposed to a tuberculosis germ.
Hoene said he still is on medicine to treat the tuberculosis until the end of this month when he will stop taking the medicine and be ready to receive a kidney.
He visits the dialysis center in Warsaw three times a month for a nurses and doctors clinic, and has lab work completed. He also goes to the Kidney Transplant Center at Lutheran Hospital, Fort Wayne, where he is in a group where he can connect with other people who need kidneys.
People who want to be a kidney donor for Hoene can call Valerie Barto, supervisor and living donor coordinator, at Lutheran Hospital Kidney Transplant Center, at 260-435-6211 or e-mai her at vbarto@lutheran-hosp.com
