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One Teacher's Lesson in Giving Twenty-year teaching veteran Jane McDuffie Smith '79 first noticed something different about Michael Carter while he was playing football during recess one day at the beginning of the school year.
Michael, who was in her eighth-grade homeroom and science classes, "was always one step behind," Smith said. "I told him, 'If you'd pull up those big baggy pants,' and after a few days he got exasperated and said, 'I can't. I'm on dialysis.'" Smith, a teacher at R. Max Abbott Middle School in Fayetteville, was stunned. Then Michael explained that he needed a kidney transplant. Her response was immediate. "I told him, 'I have two, do you want one?'" she said. For Smith, who had only just met Michael, donating a kidney was no more than giving to charity. "It's something he needed," Smith said. "It's just like giving clothes to Goodwill. You can do without that extra sweater." But it was not quite that simple. Not only did Smith have to be a willing donor, she had to have the matching blood type, as Michael told her that day on the playground. "So I asked him, 'What do you want it to be?' and he told me 'O,' and I said, 'O positive, will that do?'" Smith said. She called Michael's mother to inform her that she would be a possible donor, and Michael's mother urged Smith to call the donor coordinator at UNC Hospitals. Michael's family already had tried to find a donor, but none of his relatives was a tissue match. Smith still decided to call and arrange to begin further testing to see whether she could indeed donate her kidney to a student in need. In the past 30 years, only 14 transplants at UNC Hospitals had been from donors who did not initially know the recipient, but by December, after numerous blood and tissue tests, Smith was surprisingly cleared for the kidney transplant surgery and the operation was scheduled to take place—until Michael got sick. While on dialysis, he contracted a fever and viral infection, making it too risky for him to undergo transplant surgery and delaying the operation until January. Then, Michael had a second bout of fever and infection, and the surgery was delayed for several more months. "Something was out of place, and something else needed to happen before the transplant," Smith said. "I have a deep faith, and I don't pray for God to do things but to do his will." The delay allowed time for the "wildfire" of media attention that had surrounded the transplant to cool. Since December, when the transplant surgery originally was scheduled, Smith and Michael had been at the center of a media flurry, which has just started to die down after an appearance on NBC's "Dateline" this summer. "It has been enjoyable because it has been so overwhelmingly positive," Smith said of all the media attention. "People have been moved to search their hearts." But all the attention has taken its toll physically, too, Smith said, especially when the news initially broke late last year. "We were exhausted when we went into the hospital and probably in no shape to go through surgery," she said. "When we finally did do it, Michael was in excellent health." The transplant finally occurred in April. Smith underwent laproscopic surgery at UNC Hospitals so that Michael could have the kidney he needed to live. The four-hour operation went off without a hitch, Smith said, and because laparoscopic surgery uses small instruments and micro-cameras, few incisions were required. "I was not nervous at all but very excited," she said. "People in the preparation room were saying, 'Boy, you're a happy girl.'" Her family was somewhat less relaxed. Smith, a single mother of one, said her family had a "tremendous anxiety" but were highly supportive. "They did not want me not to do it, but my son and my dad were ready to know it was over." After removing Smith's kidney, doctors operated on Michael to complete the transplant process. And after three days of recovery (and news conferences), Smith returned home, recuperated for a week and went back into the classroom. "After three weeks, I felt like myself again," she said. Michael remained in the hospital a week longer to ensure he did not contract another infection. He returned to school with eight days left before the end of the academic year. Smith, who grew up in Raleigh before attending UNC as an education major, said she grew close to Michael and the other students in her class last year but that she did not want him to feel obligated to her. "I'm really trying to let Mike go on," she said. "He owes me nothing. I want him to have his life--the one I was hoping he would have through the transplant." For her decision to donate a kidney to one of her students, Smith has been widely recognized, including induction into the Order of the Longleaf Pine by Gov. Jim Hunt '64 (LLBJD); a resolution from the N.C. Board of Education; another resolution and key from the city of Fayetteville; an award from the Coalition on Donation; the Medal of Life from the National Kidney Foundation; and a humanitarian award from Fayetteville State University, where she is now working on a master's degree in middle grades education. Smith, who said, "I always knew I wanted to be a teacher, and everything I've ever done has been directed towards that," said what she did for Michael is something she would have done for any of her students. "He's no different than any other student," she said. "I had the love any teacher has for their student and for them to have the best life they can have." —Worth
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