Sharing More Than a Corner of the Office   

Post writer gives a kidney to her longtime co-worker in need of a transplant.

Warren Brown and Martha McNeil Hamilton have been through a lot together in the last 20-some years. As two of three longtime pod mates on the Washington Post's financial news staff, they are known to be great friends. But when, two days before Thanksgiving, Hamilton and Brown underwent surgery so that he could have one of her kidneys, "people were just flabbergasted," says the third member, Frank Swoboda.

Hamilton's generosity struck a chord in a newsroom full of hard-bitten reporters, says Jill Dutt, assistant managing editor for financial news. "We are trained to ask questions," she says, like, " 'So what's the other side of the story? What's in it for them? What's their agenda?' " In this case, she says, "there was no agenda but friendship."

Hamilton, a retail writer, had watched her friend Brown, who covers the automotive industry and writes a widely published car column, deteriorate physically and struggle emotionally after his first kidney transplant failed. His wife, Mary Anne, gave him one of her kidneys in July 1999, but two years later, a too-aggressive antirejection drug therapy allowed a virus to attack the transplant.

Returning to thrice-weekly dialysis "consistently wiped me out.... Martha and Frank were saying, 'This time around, dialysis seems to be killing you rather than helping you,' " says Brown, who turns 54 in January.

Brown clearly needed another kidney. A family history of hypertension meant no relatives could donate. Hamilton, 56, who had volunteered the first time, renewed her offer. Though several others were in line ahead of her, she was the only one who passed the tests for blood type, tissue and other compatibilities.

They share other similarities, too, Hamilton says. "We're both from the same part of the country. He's from New Orleans, I'm from Houston. His wife's from Marshall, Texas. We've both had concerns about our kids [and] supported each other through that." And when Hamilton was in a "really tough period" some time ago, Brown and Swoboda helped pull her through, she says.

Hamilton says the idea of surgery doesn't bother her--in fact she'd earlier considered donating a kidney to help her late brother-in-law. "You can live very happily all your life with one kidney. I looked at whether there was any shortened longevity. There's not, based on all the studies that have been done to date."

This matter-of-fact approach is typical of Hamilton, Brown says. "She's not a drama queen. She just does what she does and that's it.... She's not the least bit self-aggrandizing."

The chance to get first-person accounts from two "observant, literate, engaged journalists on both sides of the transaction" was too good to pass up for the Post's weekly health section, says the editor, Craig Stoltz. He decided the value of their stories outweighed his concerns about "indulging ourselves at our readers' expense." Since both participants would be unconscious for the main events, medical writer and physician Susan Okie and a photographer were in the operating rooms to help report an extensive package that ran December 11.

While Hamilton's surgery went smoothly, Brown's six-hour procedure had "a couple of scary moments," Okie says, that caused her to wish briefly that she hadn't agreed to do the story. After the kidney had been put in place, she says, Brown began to bleed. As the doctors were rushing to control the bleeding, she heard the surgeon ask for a bowl of ice and saline solution, like the one they'd used when transporting the kidney from Hamilton's operating room.

"My stomach was churning," Okie says. "I was just scared at that point that maybe the kidney gift would be for naught."

But as of mid-December, Brown said his recovery was progressing well.

Because Hamilton was worried people at the Post would think her "weird," no formal announcement had been made before the operations, though some learned through the grapevine. The day of the surgeries, Dutt sent out e-mail updates as word came from Swoboda, who was at the hospital.

Her colleagues' response "was incredible," Hamilton says. "It was beyond anything I would have thought.... I was very touched."

For Brown, the fact that it's Hamilton's kidney and not a stranger's makes a big difference. "It's not just a matter of transplanting an organ," he says. "As silly as it may sound, I truly believe that you accept something of [that] person's spirit.

"Accepting that from Martha, wow. Not only do I get another chance to live a whole life. If I can get some of Martha's spiritual characteristics, some of her character as a person, I've got a fighting chance."

Edited by Jill Rosen