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Back on his feet just days after giving one of his kidneys to a friend, Jerry Whitmore had high praise for the staff at
Mayo Clinic Hospital.
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Foothills kidney donor, recipient home after transplant surgery
Mayo survival rate one of best in country
by Barry Cohen

CAREFREE – Jerry Whitmore jokes that he’s heard of a lawyer asking for an arm and a leg, but never a kidney.

Actually, Whitmore, 59, a Certified Public Accountant and former Cave Creek town councilman, wasn’t asked for anything. He volunteered to give one of his kidneys to Ellen Chesler, 45, of Carefree, the wife of Attorney Jerald Chesler. The procedure was done at Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix on April 4, and both Whitmore and Ellen Chesler are home. In fact, when The Desert Advocate spoke with Whitmore, he was back at work–feeling, he quipped, like he had “just taken a bayonet to the gut.”

“The doctor probably wouldn’t approve of me being on the job,” he added, “but what the heck, I don’t hang drywall for a living.”

It’s likely that few people have approached a serious operation, let alone donating a kidney, with Whitmore’s devil‑may‑care attitude and sense of humor. He related that he got a great kick out the fact he was fourth in line among the volunteers to provide a kidney to Ellen Chesler, but was moved to the top of the list when the three “clean‑living” volunteers before him didn’t qualify. “Instead, they got someone who drinks, smokes and hangs around with tattooed women,” he said.

Whitmore decided to volunteer his kidney after watching his good friends suffer for the past year and a half. With Ellen undergoing dialysis two to three times a week, said Whitmore, Jerry Chesler had become a full‑time caretaker, trying to take care of two boys in high school, keep up his law practice and support his wife.

“Quite simply,” explained Whitmore, “the family had a problem and I had a way to help. Nobody lives forever. If it were your call, wouldn’t you trade the body of a 60‑year‑old crash‑test dummy to give a family of four a life again?”

Helping allay any fears Whitmore might have had was that the operation was being done at Mayo Clinic Hospital. “Hey, if they can’t pull it off, nobody can,” he said prior entering the hospital. His faith in Mayo is even stronger post‑surgery. “I was flabbergasted at their sheer competence, from everything leading up to the operation to the procedure itself,” he emphasized. “When they say you’re going in for surgery at 8:15 in the morning, they mean 8:15 and not a minute later.”

The kidney transplant program at Mayo Clinic‑Arizona started in June 1999. Using the Mayo Model of Care as the cornerstone, the program has performed over 500 transplants, and offers both cadaver donor and living donor transplants. Even more encouraging, its one‑year patient survival rate of more than 97 percent is among the best in the nation.

Whitmore, a self‑described hard‑living Harley rider, said he never subscribed to the theory that “life is best lived by avoiding it.” He acknowledges, though, that his organ‑donating days are

probably over. “I need my other kidney, and as far as my liver goes, nobody would want that thing.”

Reach the reporter at barry@thedesertadvocate.com

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