by: Kara Naegeli
for the Pocono Record

    Not even a kidney transplant could keep East Stroudsburg resident Bill Rogers from maintaining his active lifestyle.

    In January 1998, Rogers was looking forward to starting his spring semester at East Stroudsburg University and finally getting his long-awaited degree in history. What he did not know was his biggest fear was about to become a reality.

    When the college requested a physical, Rogers felt healthy and went into the physical with no worries, only to find out that his kidneys were enlarged.

    Within a week he was sent for tests that confirmed is biggest fear, the genetic disease polyeystic kidneys. The disease can result in complete kidney failure and death when not detected early.

    "I was in complete kidney failure and didn't know it, because I had no symptoms," Rogers said. "I just didn't want to believe it was happening to me."

    His mother, her twin sister and his grandmother had all died in their early 40's from the disease. Rogers had spent most of his youth taking care of his mother's dialysis, so finding out he had the same deadly disease was a nightmare.

    Rogers' family doctor knew his family's medical history and had him put onto dialysis immediately to prevent him from going into a coma.

    His wife and two children were shocked by the news. "He is so outgoing, and all of a sudden he's lying in a hospital bed with all tubes coming out of him. I had it stuck in my mind that he was going to die, because his mom died," his wife, Heidi, remembered.

   Rogers spent 2-1/2 years on dialysis, three days a week, four hours a day. While he went through the dialysis and waited for a donor kidney, he said the only thing that kept him going was his family. "You survive for your wife and kids," he said.

    "You can't just sit there thinking about when you're going to get a kidney once you are on the list," Rogers explained. "You have to keep yourself busy and look at the bright side of life."

   And that is exactly what he did.

  He continued going to college at ESU, but he had to fit his dialysis around his class schedule. Teachers would always ask if he was OK, and even though he was very dizzy and week after the treatments he struggled on and made the dean's list.

   "No matter what, I was going to fight to the end," Rogers said.

    Nothing could stop him from staying active in his kids' lives. He would go to summer camp with his kids and stay overnight, only to wake up the next morning and drive 45 minutes for his treatment. Afterwards he would go back up to camp and swim with the kids.

    J.M. Hill Intermediate School children also kept their Cub master busy during the treatments.

    "I'd be standing at the meetings after dialysis, dizzy and weak because I was just dehydrated and my blood had been circulated through a machine for fours hours, but I wanted to help," he said.

    Then there was the part-time job at JC Penney taking photos. "I couldn't work full-time when I was on dialysis because it was too tiring and I could easily get sick if I was run down," he said.

    However, on June 19, 2000 at 2 a.m. his struggle to keep his hopes up paid off when he received the telephone call informing him a kidney was available.

    A man had been in a car accident in Utah, and his kidney had been put on ice, which is crucial to keeping the kidney usable. There is only a 72-hour period when the transplant must take place before the kidney is too damaged.

    That 72-hour period came down to the wire for Rogers as the kidney he had prayed for was misplaced. It turned out that the carrier had missed the plane, which resulted in the kidney staying frozen for an extra 12 hours.

    "If it wasn't for the transplant surgeon, Dr. Reckard, I don't know what might have happened," Heidi Rogers said. "He knew that what he did gave the kids back their daddy."

    When the transplant finally occurred on the June 20, his mother's birthday, it took hours for the kidney to thaw out and start working.

    "I had never been so excited to see urine, because that meant that the kidney was finally working," Heidi Rogers joked.

    Since the transplant, Bill Rogers has become a Boy Scout leader and is working full-time for Lifetouch Photo taking school pictures.

    "Having your health means everything," Rogers said. "I was given a second chance at life."

This story appeared on Thursday, July 19, 2001 in the Health & Science column of the Pocono Record.