Wife’s Kidney Transplanted Into Ailing Husband

Doctors successfully removed a kidney from an Orange County woman Wednesday and transplanted it into her husband, a gravely ill diabetic, marking yet another milestone in the lives of a Mission Viejo couple whose story has drawn national attention.

With network television cameras taping their every move, doctors operated on Victoria Ingram-Curlee, 45, for two hours, then spent another hour preparing four arteries in her left kidney for insertion into her husband, Randall Curlee, 46.

Dr. Robert Mendez, chairman of the multi-organ transplant team at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego, said the actual transplant took 3 1/2 hours--about an hour longer than usual--because surgeons were surprised to learn that Ingram-Curlee’s left kidney contained four arteries.

Preoperative procedures had indicated only three, meaning doctors spent additional time disconnecting the arteries from the aorta, the main blood vessel of the body. Doctors labeled this phase of the surgery “difficult” but said it posed no problems for the actual transplant.

Dr. Rafael Mendez, Robert Mendez’s identical twin and the head of the hospital’s kidney transplant team, said three of the arteries “came together in a single chunk, very, very close to the aorta. But we were able to disconnect (the arteries) from the aorta in order to preserve a single opening.”