40 Years Later: Two Sisters and the Kidney Transplant Surgery That Started It All

FORT WORTH, Texas - Two sisters became a part of history when one gifted the other a kidney - the first of such transplant in Tarrant County.

Carolyn Nowotny, then 38, didn't hesitate to donate a kidney to her younger sister, Marilyn Patterson, a 36-year-old mother of two who had been worn down by more than two years of dialysis after lupus ravaged her kidneys.

"I don't regret it for a minute," Nowotny said recently of her decision. "I said if it would give her 10 more years, it would make me so happy."

May 6 marked 40 years since that historic operation, which officially launched the Kidney Transplant Program at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth.

Patterson received far more than the decade her sister had hoped for. Today, at 76, she is a grandmother of seven still living with the same donated kidney - a testament to a sister's gift that keeps on giving.

Patterson says her current medical providers are all in awe.

"The word one uses to describe how well I'm doing is 'miraculous,'" she said.

On May 7, the two sisters reunited at Texas Health Fort Worth to celebrate the Kidney Transplant Program's anniversary in combination with the Wall of Life Ceremony, an annual event to honor recipients and those who gave the gift of life through organ, tissue and eye donation.

"This year's celebration holds special significance as we mark our 40th anniversary while also honoring the incredible generosity of the organ donors from the past year," said Jared Shelton, FACHE, president of Texas Health Fort Worth. "We are truly honored to have these sisters with us for this meaningful occasion. Their presence underscores the spirit of gratitude, remembrance and hope that defines this annual event and reflects the lasting impact of organ donation on patients, families and our entire community."

Since the program's start in 1986, it has facilitated 1,379 transplants, including 204 involving living donors. Last year, the program set records for both the most kidney transplants performed in a single year - 71 - and the most living-donor surgeries, with 22.

Charles Andrews, M.D., Patterson's nephrologist when she underwent the transplant, founded the program at Texas Health Fort Worth. Previously a fellow at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, where kidney transplants were first done in the United States, Andrews noticed patients in Fort Worth needing renal transplants were having to be sent to hospitals with kidney programs in Galveston and Dallas.

Andrews pitched the idea of a renal transplant program and later enlisted the help of Robert Sloane, M.D., and Sydney Worsham, M.D., both surgeons, and fellow nephrologist Richard Mauk, M.D., to make it a reality. They first set up the Tarrant County Organ Procurement Program (which would later become the LifeGift Organ Donation Center) to create a resource for kidneys. Other organs procured were shared with outside transplant programs, so as not to be wasted.

"It's sort of my baby," Andrews, who retired in 2014, said of the project. "It took a lot of work to get that up and running, both the organ donor program and the transplant program. I am just glad the programs continue to be successful."

Andrews said he is very pleased that his former patient's donated kidney is still working.

"But it doesn't surprise me," he added. "It was a perfectly matched kidney."

Patterson said when doctors performed the transplant, her new kidney began working "right off the bat."

"It was impressive to the doctors," Patterson recalled. "And everything just started getting better."

The sisters said they were honored to be the hospital's and county's first kidney transplant donor and recipient, and they still have scrapbooks commemorating their transplant journey and the media coverage it garnered.

"We kind of felt like celebrities," Nowotny said with a laugh. "I've always felt blessed that I was able to do it for her. It made us even closer."

Learn more about becoming a kidney donor here.