An Extraordinary Life: Manhattan man raising awareness for living donors in wife’s memory

When Kevin Malone of Manhattan met the upbeat and positive Kathy Malone on a dating site in 2015, he envisioned many happy years with her.

But Kathy went into kidney failure in 2017 and then battled one health issue after another. Kathy died June 4, 2021 at the age of 48.

So Kevin began the Katherine Malone Foundation in her memory to raise awareness for organ donation. The foundation will host a golf outing at the Morris Country Club on June 4, 2022, the first anniversary of Kathy’s unexpected death.

Kathy supported organ donation even before she herself needed a donor. She had wanted to donate part of her liver to her first husband Bernard Woods Jr. (deceased) when he was battling liver cancer, Kathy said in a 2018 Herald-News story. But Kathy said in the story that her husband’s cancer metastasized before the donation could happen. And when Kathy went into kidney failure, one health setback after enough prevented her from getting a donation, too. Kevin said.

Neverthless, Kathy always maintained her positive attitude “no matter how bad things got,” Kevin said.

“She had a bright and bubbly personality,” Kevin said. “She was kind-hearted, warm, genuine. She liked to help people out. She had a “helping others” type of nature in her. She just focused on life.”

Kevin said Kathy was a “go-getter” and had returned to college before her kidneys failed to study project management because she loved coordinating projects.

“I think about when we had our basement done. She handled a lot of the work with that,” Kevin said. “She put the timeline together, the resources that we needed, and she designed the space.”

‘Everywhere we went, the door was being slammed in terms of her having a transplant’

But as Kathy’s health and energy declined, Kathy redirected her attention to her care, Kevin said. Even though Kathy became ill early in their relationship, Kevin never saw the situation as a burden, he said.

“To me, it was just another challenge and we both had to find ways to deal with that,” Kevin said. “Part of that goes back to my upbringing. I wasn’t raised to run from problems. I was raised to face those problems head-on.”

Kathy, a type 1 diabetic, had open heart surgery in May 2016. She was told the procedure might cause a decline kidney function, which it did, Kathy said in the 2018 story. She was 45 at the time.

However, the loss was slight, and her kidney remained stable, Kathy had said in the story. Kathy returned to work until she until she needed an emergency hysterectomy in May 2017, which was followed with major dental work, Kathy said in the story.

Kathy was at her job in a medical office in July 2017 when she noticed the swelling in her legs and hands. She went to find a nurse.

“The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the ER,” Kathy said in the story.

Kathy had end stage renal failure. She went on dialysis but really needed a kidney. Kathy opted for peritoneal dialysis, which she could perform at home and night. And she kept working by day, Kevin said.

Kevin said the peritoneal dialysis allowed Kathy a fairly normal life.

“At night and one the weekends, we’d still go out and do the things that typical couples do,” Kevin said. “We’d go out to dinner, go to a hockey game, go to a museum, go to a concert or a show. And then she’d come home and connect up to her dialysis machine.”

Nine months into dialysis, Kathy developed a severe abdominal infection in the peritoneal area near her port. She had switch to hemodialysis – where the patient is hooked up to a machine to remove waste products – and she needed three surgeries to remove the infection, Kathy said in the story.

Kathy later fell and broke her leg, which required surgery and then a skin graft, Kevin said. She developed a hernia that needed repairing before doctors could consider a kidney transplant, Kevind said. But doctors also wanted Kathy to lose 20 pounds before they could repair the hernia – and some of that weight was water, which Kathy’s kidneys could not excrete, Kevin said.

“I knew that her condition was very fragile,” Kevin said. “But everywhere we went, the door was being slammed in terms of her having a transplant.”

‘The true heroes in life’

Kevin has several goals for the Katherine Malone Foundation is two-fold. One, Kevin wants to raise awareness of organ donation in general and living donations in particular.

According to organdonation.gov, 106,106 people (men, women and children) are on the national transplant waiting list and 17 die each day waiting for an organ transplant. As of February 2022, 83% of those people on the waiting list are waiting for kidneys, the website said.

Kevin wants to see a bill passed one day with Kathy’s name on it that provides a permanent tax credit for living donors. Kevin said that, to him, living organ donors are “the true heroes in life.”

“I spent 18 years in the fire service as a part time firefighter and EMT,” Kevin said. “And people always say firefighters are heroes. But we can know nothing more heroic than someone saying, ‘I want to donate a piece of my body to somebody and save their life.”

[ Joliet area donors encourage living kidney donations ]

Kevin also wants the foundation to provide services, such as personal shoppers and housecleaning, to people who are battling kidney failure, he said. People on dialysis typically feel unwell and Kathy was no exception, Kevin said.

“I want Kathy remembered as someone who always cared about how people were doing,” Kevin said. “It didn’t’ matter how awful she felt. She always wanted to be there to help somebody out.”

• To feature someone in “An Extraordinary Life,” contact Denise M. Baran-Unland at 815-280-4122 or dunland@shawmedia.com.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Katherine Malone Foundation Golf Tournament

WHEN: 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. June 4

WHERE: Morris Country Club, 2615 Route 6, Morris

TICKETS: $175. Includes playing spot, lunch, beverages throughout the day and invitation to awards reception.

INFO: To purchase tickets and for more information, visit katherinemalonefoundation.org.