A kidney for the new year? McHenry woman finds potential donor – in longtime friend

Katie Parker’s family has a history of giving things away.

In the Park Ridge family’s case, the thing they tend to donate their blood, stem cells and in one son’s case, part of his liver.

Now, Katie Parker hopes she can help Debbie Koerber by giving her friend and former co-worker a kidney.

“I am the honored candidate so far,” Parker said. “I have submitted my application to donate by kidney to Debbie” and has undergone most of the needed testing.

Koerber, of McHenry, began putting out fliers, social media posts and posters earlier this year seeking a live donor to give her a kidney. Parker and she had talked about the possibility before. but the potential donation is moving forward now that Parker knows she is not too old to donate a kidney.

“If I am the match, great. If I am not .. I will continue to go down the list.”

—  Katie Parker, of Park Ridge

Parker will travel to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, in late January to complete the testing needed to see if she is definitely a match with Koerber.

What makes Parker a likely candidate is she has O-positive blood, so she’s a universal donor. Both of her sons and a daughter have the same blood type.

“My daughter is next in line to donate to Debbie,” Parker said. “Mayo told me – and they didn’t tell me why – I am the top candidate now.”

Growing up, Parker said her mother was always donating to blood drives, as she was also O-positive.

Then, her middle son donated stem cells six years ago while attending Butler University in Indianapolis. He had registered through the school’s Project 44. It seeks stem cell and bone marrow donors in honor of a former student who died of cancer and wore the number 44 on his basketball jersey while playing at the school.

Another of Parker’s son volunteered to donate a portion of his liver to a good friend of his father. A niece ended up being a better match.

“But Northwestern Hospital reached out and asked ‘Would you be an altruistic donor?’” Parker said.

Altruistic donors are ones who donate to someone they do not know. Her son agreed, and donated a lobe of his liver on Valentine’s Day.

“That was amazing,” Parker said of the experience. “We have always believed we are on this earth to give back and take care of others.”

She and Koerber have been friends for more than 30 years. Both young and just out of college, the two worked together at a nonprofit organization in the late 1980s.

“We became really close friends ... and maintained that friendship for all of these years,” Parker said.

During the previous liver donation the family was part of, Parker was tested but was told she could not donate because of her age, now 60. She assumed it was the same for a kidney, Parker said. She has since found out she is not too old.

Parker and her family has been “a source of information for me,” Koerber said. It was also Parker who gave her the idea of making up fliers to find a live donor.

But once the testing showed Parker could in fact donate, they have moved forward with the testing process.

Koerber’s case manager at the Mayo Clinic told her that if Parker is the match, “we could be looking at possibly April” for surgery, she said.

But if she is not a match for Koerber, that is not the end of the road for her, Parker said.

“If I am the match, great. If I am not .. I will continue to go down the list” and donate to someone else, she said.

With her son and his liver, it took four years to find the right person to match him with.

“It does not stop the momentum” of donation, Parker said.