Brian Cerise donated a kidney last week – not to his girlfriend, who has polycystic kidney disease – but to her mother, who also suffers from the genetic disorder.
“He’s going straight to heaven,” Elin Robbins-Geman, 55, said from her bed at University of Colorado Hospital two days after receiving 28-year-old Cerise’s kidney.
For his part, Cerise said he is no super hero in giving a kidney to the mother of the woman he hopes to marry.
“I feel like I did something that I could do,” he said. “I just had a gut feeling it would work out.”
On Sunday, while Cerise and Robbins-Geman were recuperating, Kathryn Leibovic, 26, inspired by her mother’s plight and her boyfriend’s sacrifice, was at a fundraiser in Washington Park.
Leibovic joined 325 people at the Walk for PKD. Her goal was to raise $5,000. In the end, her tally was more than $10,000.
“I’m pretty blown away at the support we’ve gotten,” Leibovic said.
The crowd of walkers wearing blue-and-white PKD T- shirts on a busy Sunday in the Denver park prompted one man to walk up and donate $1,000.
In all, the walk raised $46,000, according to event organizer Karen Acierno.
PKD is a genetic disorder affecting 600,000 Americans that causes cysts to grow on the kidney. At the time of her surgery, Robbins-Geman’s kidney weighed 15 pounds.
“It’s not only the most common genetic disease, but it really affects families,” said Acierno, who has PKD and had a kidney transplant in 1998.
Several transplant recipients at the walk expressed hope that a cure for the disease would be found before younger generations with PKD need kidney transplants.
Cerise, recovering in the hospital Friday, worried about what would happen if his girlfriend, Leibovic, faces kidney failure.
“I won’t be an eligible donor at that point, so we’ll have to find a cure for her,” Cerise said. “She’s the most important person in my life.”
Staff writer Abbe Smith can be reached at 303-820-1201 or asmith@denverpost.com.
