Local Navy Veteran in Search of Kidney Donor
Henry “Hank” Goldberg proudly served his country in the United States Navy during the Vietnam era and later with the Army National Guard at Camp Smith in Cortlandt, and now finds himself in need of someone to answer his call for help.
Five years ago, the 76-year-old Village of Buchanan resident learned his kidney functions were not normal. With the help of his wife, Viki, he made some dietary changes but the only permanent solution for his condition is a kidney transplant. Last week, he started dialysis three times a week.
“While I’m there it’s depressing,” Goldberg, a retired New York City correctional officer, said about his dialysis treatment. “There’s a lot of diabetics and people without limbs.”
“It’s bad news (to have kidney disease), but dialysis will keep you alive,” Viki said. “Once you have kidney disease, you have to be the one in charge. You have to be your own advocate. This has been my full-time job.”
The Goldberg’s have been aggressively exploring their options. They joined the federally run United Network Organ Sharing (UNOS) program, where the wait time in New York State for an organ match is five to seven years.
“It’s a bunch of names in a pot. It’s a crapshoot,” Viki said.
“It’s like balls spinning in the lottery,” Hank added.
Hank is also in transplant programs at Mt. Sinai and Yale in New Haven, along with signing up with Renewal, a nonprofit organization dedicated to assisting people suffering from various forms of kidney disease. In particular, Renewal has a multi-faceted, proactive team that is dedicated to saving lives through kidney donation.
“We are on the edge. It’s like living two lives,” Viki said. “We can’t go anywhere because we might get the call.”
With Hank’s A blood type matching both A and O blood types, the Goldberg’s remain hopeful. Viki happens to be an ideal match with the same blood type and tissue, but since she has kidney stones she was determined to be ineligible.
Two women stepped forward to donate but since they were considered obese, they also were ruled out.
“To have a perfect match isn’t easy,” Viki said. “There are also a whole lot of issues with being fair and equitable with distribution. We are determined to keep at it.”
A former Emergency Room nurse, Viki is making a special appeal to families with young adults to sign up as potential donors, especially with the opioid epidemic resulting in about 100 people a day dying from overdoses.
“It’s all education,” she said, noting one liver or kidney in a deceased person could live on in eight individuals.
Meanwhile, while the Goldberg’s were seeking a kidney, they were fighting for medical benefits for Hank from the federal Veterans Affairs Administration since the cost of post-transplant medicine and treatment is about $10,000 a month.
Viki said of all the elected officials she contacted, state Senator Terrence Murphy’s office was the most helpful. Five months ago, Hank was assigned benefits from the VA.
“It’s not just the individual that has it,” Hank said of the toll his condition has taken on his wife. “As you’re doing it, it wears you out.”
Anyone interested in possibly donating a kidney to Hank Goldberg can contact Renewal at (718) 431-9831, ext. 209 or R2175@renewal.org.
Rick has more than 40 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, running the gamut from politics and crime to sports and human interest. He has been an editor at Examiner Media since 2012. Read more from Rick’s editor-author bio here. Read Rick’s work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/pezzullo_rick-writer/