Chicago Man, 28, Undergoes Kidney Transplant While Awake, Sees New Organ Before Doctors Perform Surgery

John Nicholas received the kidney donation from a childhood friend after his kidneys failed for a medically undetermined reason

A 28-year-old man from Chicago has undergone a kidney transplant — and he was awake the entire time.

“It was a pretty cool experience to know what was happening in real time and be aware of the magnitude of what they were doing,” John Nicholas, who went to school for biomedical engineering, said. "Seeing it so up close and personal and literally directly applying to me was a really exciting experience."

“At one point during surgery, I recall asking, ‘Should I be expecting the spinal anesthesia to kick in?’ They had already been doing a lot of work and I had been completely oblivious to that fact. Truly, no sensation whatsoever,” Nicholas recalled of the May 24 surgery.

The surgery, which took place at Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive Transplant Center, took less than two hours, and the sedation Nicholas received is similar to the type used for cesarean sections.

And as Nicholas explains, “I was still aware of what they were doing. Especially when they called out my name and told me about certain milestones they had reached.”

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The root cause of Nicholas’s kidney issues was never found, but he was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease as a teen. When it became clear he would need a transplant, his mother was originally going to donate hers — until “it then became clear that she was actually not going to be a candidate   because she was diagnosed with breast cancer,” Nicholas said.

Nicholas shared the news with his childhood buddies — whom he calls his “ride or die friends.”

That included his best friend, Pat Wise, who said, “I was in my kitchen cooking dinner and John sent a message that read, ‘My doctor says it’s time for me to start looking for kidney donors.’ I stared at my phone and without hesitating, filled out the form that night.”

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“John is a good friend,” Wise, 29, continued. “He needed a kidney, and I had an extra one. I had to at least explore the potential of being his donor.”

“This example shows that we have each other’s backs,” Nicholas said. “ It meant the world to me. It’s truly been life-changing.”

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As Dr. Satish Nadig, transplant surgeon and director of the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive Transplant Center, said. “It really opens up a whole new door and is another tool in our toolbelt for the field of transplantation.

”It was an incredible experience being able to show a patient what their new kidney looked like before placing it inside the body.”

But now, the only thing Nicholas — who was sent home just a day after surgery — wants to put in his body is some pizza, which was banned from his pre-transplant diet.

“I never realized how much I liked pizza," he said, "until I was supposed to restrict how much I ate.”

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