Adversity Strikes Again

David Eckstein didn’t bother asking his family if he should come home this week.

His father, Whitey, had a kidney transplant Friday morning, the fourth family member to have one since 1988. David Eckstein’s two sisters and one of his brothers already have had transplants, and two of David’s nephews have signs of kidney disease.

It’s a twist of fate that would devastate most families. But the Ecksteins have never had much use for self-pity, no matter how dismal the circumstances.

“If I used it as any type of crutch, [my father] would be very disappointed,” the St. Louis Cardinals shortstop said. “That’s why I’m not even flying home for the surgery. I have a job to do and he expects me to do that job. There’s no excuses for not doing that job.”

The transplant surgery went well, and the new kidney began working as soon as it was hooked up, said Christine Eckstein, David’s sister and a transplant recipient in 1991. The donor, family friend Lori Vaughan, could be released from the hospital as early as Sunday. Whitey might be home in a week.

“Everything went beautifully,” Christine Eckstein said. “A very good day.”

If anyone deserves one, it’s the Ecksteins.

Whitey Eckstein knew as a teenager that he had kidney disease, but it probably would be years before he would need a transplant. He and his wife, Pat, became teachers, had five children and settled into life in Sanford, Fla., a small city about 20 miles north of Orlando.

Things were fine until the fall of 1988, when their daughter, Susan, got sick. By the time her illness was discovered, the 16-year-old had zero kidney function. While Pat prepared to donate one of her kidneys, the other four Eckstein children -- Ken, Christine, Rick and David -- were tested to see if they, too, had the genetic defect that would make them sick.

David, then 13, remembers having to miss a day of middle school for the tests.

“It was a little difficult,” he said. “You’re kind of scared waiting for the result.”

Christine, a freshman in college at the time, never thought she was sick, didn’t even want to get tested. But her symptoms already were painfully clear. One day, she rode her bike to class and abandoned it at a bike rack because she was so weak and tired.

“I never went back to get it because I couldn’t ride it back to my dorm,” she said. “I didn’t have the strength to ride it.”

Weeks went by. Then, on the day Pat and Susan came home from the hospital after the transplant, they pulled into the driveway and heard the phone ring. When Pat heard the doctor’s voice, she feared something else was wrong with Susan. No, the doctor said, it’s your other children.

Rick and David, the youngest Eckstein, had been spared -- they wouldn’t have kidney disease. Christine and Ken, the oldest, had not.

“It was crushing. It was devastating,” David said quietly in an interview before the Cardinals faced the Cubs at Wrigley Field last weekend. “If you’d ask Rick and myself, we would wish that it happened to us and let them be normal. It’s one of those things you don’t like seeing your brother and sister, your family, go through.”

Christine already was so sick doctors wanted her to come back to the hospital the family had just left. But it was only a few days before Christmas, so Pat asked if they could have the weekend at home.

When the doctors agreed, the family got wheelchairs for Pat and Susan and went to the mall to do Christmas shopping. Christine began treatment the following week.

“That was the beginning of saying, ‘We’re still going to live life,’ ” Pat said. “Was it easy? No, it was not easy. We had to keep moving forward.”

Christine and Ken stayed at college, determined to be like other students. When their kidneys failed and they needed dialysis to cleanse their blood of toxins, they had catheters implanted in their abdomens. Instead of going to a dialysis center for three to four hours, three times a week, they could do their treatments at home.

Many classmates never even knew.

“I still did everything a normal kid would do,” Christine said. “We had to do things a little bit cut back. But we pretty much had as normal a life as we could.”

According to data from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, about 90,000 people are on waiting lists for organ transplants, and more than two-thirds of them need kidneys. There were 16,003 kidney transplants last year.

Christine and Ken Eckstein had their transplants in July 1991, within four days of each other. Both of the kidneys came from cadaver donors.

“I remember feeling so wonderful and food tasted so good,” Christine said. “Being able to do things -- it was just a very happy time. A very happy time.”

Christine and Ken went on to law school, while Susan got her master’s. Though Susan and Christine were told having children might be difficult, Susan now has two. Christine has four.

The 60-year-old Whitey, who has been undergoing dialysis since April 2003, ran for mayor of Sanford earlier this year, narrowly losing in a March runoff.

“You don’t tell us what we can’t do,” Pat Eckstein said. “We just do it.”

Look at David. At 5-foot-7, he’s shorter than most clubhouse kids and was told by pretty much everybody that he’d never make the major leagues. But, in the Eckstein way, he refused to accept it.

He’s already been part of one World Series championship, helping the Anaheim Angels win in 2002. He’s now with the Cardinals, the team with the best record in baseball as of Thursday night.

“How many little kids are out there fighting because they know David did it?” Pat Eckstein said. “A lot of people have said to me that we are an inspiration.... People say, ‘How do you do it?’ What choice do I have? You get up and go.”

As his children thrived, Whitey Eckstein got progressively sicker and spent months waiting for a donor. Though David volunteered, his dad quickly refused the offer. David’s getting married in November, and the family worries -- considering its history -- that one of his children might be sick someday.

If not, Christine’s two sons might need kidneys.

The Ecksteins had 10 friends offer to be tested when they learned Whitey needed a kidney, and Vaughan was a match. She met Christine and Ken in law school, and has become so close to the family she’s now called “the sixth Eckstein.”

The transplant was scheduled three months ago. But two days before David’s first All-Star game, the family had another scare.

Eckstein, who talks to his family at least once a day, was at the airport waiting to board his flight to Detroit when he called home. When Whitey Eckstein got on the phone, though, all he could say was, “I can’t breathe. Here’s your mom.”

The elder Eckstein was rushed to a hospital, where doctors found fluid had built up around his lungs. He was on a respirator briefly, and released from the hospital a few days later.

“Having gone through this other times, I have full confidence in the surgery,” David Eckstein said before the transplant. “Actually, it’ll probably be a day of joy. Because my dad will get a lot of his freedom back.”

And nothing will give David Eckstein more joy than to look in the stands and see his father. The Cardinals visit the Florida Marlins for a three-game series beginning Aug. 29, and Whitey Eckstein is hoping to make the trip to Miami.

“I just want to thank Lori,” Christine Eckstein said after Friday’s surgery. “Our whole family revolves around my dad. Now that he’s well, my whole family is going to be stronger. And a lot happier.”