Transplant triangle: She gave ex a kidney 14 years ago, now husband plans to give her one

Karma belongs on Maggie Munoz’s side.

The 60-year-old Ventura resident donated one of her kidneys 14 years ago to save the life of her now ex-husband. Her remaining kidney failed after life-saving surgery a year ago. Her current husband, Jeff Walters, wants to give up his organ to save her life again.

“It’s just years of life,” he said, explaining a kidney transplanted from a living person brings a longer life expectancy than an organ donated after death. “That’s 10 to 15 more years I get with her.”

They sat in a Ventura hillside apartment marked by a 43-step stairway. Maggie knows the number because counting helps her make the climb after marathon dialysis sessions. She dabbed at her eyes with the three remaining fingers of her left hand, proclaimed herself lucky and told the story of the transplant triangle that is expected to lead to surgery at Stanford University Medical Center.

It started with a routine work physical nearly 20 years ago. A urine test showed so much protein that doctors told Chuck Munoz, a propulsion tech at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory outside Simi Valley, his kidneys were failing. He left his job about a year later because he needed dialysis, eventually four times every day.

He is 6-feet, 6-inches tall and weighed more than 250 pounds. Maggie, then his wife, is 5-foot-5 and loves to dance. Despite concerns her kidney would burn out in his body, she knew she would be a match. She just knew.

“She didn’t hesitate at all,” Chuck said. “I think if anyone we knew had needed a kidney, she would have given it.”

A caregiver by nature

She’s a caregiver by nature and career. Maggie ran a Ventura day care center for years. When she learned about the background of a 15-year-old employee from a broken home, she took her in as a foster daughter, raising her along with her two sons.

“She believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself,” Arlene Luna said. She lived with the Munoz family for two years and now, more than two decades later, resides in Simi Valley. “She’s always thinking of how to better someone else’s life. I still feel like I owe her my life."

Chuck's transplant took place in May 2009 at Stanford. Surgeons removed Maggie’s kidney in a two-hour surgery and then took four hours to transfer it into Chuck. He was discharged from the hospital in four days.

“I felt incredible right after the transplant,” he said. He no longer needed dialysis. He was free.

“It definitely saved my life, and it saved the quality of my life,” he said.

'He asked me to dance'

Chuck and Maggie eventually separated, then divorced but remain supportive of each other. He moved to Nevada. She stayed in Ventura. She met Walters at a downtown bar called The Tavern. She was there to dance. He was there to listen to the blues band, Crooked Eye Tommy.

When they started playing one of his favorite songs, he approached her.

“He asked me to dance, and that was it,” she said.

They started dating, then moved in together. They married five years ago in Laughlin, Nevada. Their home is decorated with pictures of her 6-year-old granddaughter and memorabilia from his beloved Kansas City Chiefs football team. They tease each other about age. When she needs a tissue or someone to pick up the phone, he’s there.

“Just about every moment of my life is dependent on Jeff,” she said.

Intestines twisted into knots

She has health issues, including multiple sclerosis and diabetes. The unrelated pain in her belly started several years ago. It grew, intruding into nearly every moment of life.

A year ago, on July 5, the pain became unbearable. He rushed her to the Community Memorial Hospital emergency room in Ventura where she waited for care, finally falling to the floor. He helped her out, drove a block away and then called an ambulance to take her back, thinking it would put her at the front of the line.

It worked. She was throwing up blood, lots of it. At first doctors told Walters it was a simple bowel obstruction. Dr. Helmuth Billy looked at a scan and realized an internal hernia had twisted her intestines into knots and could be forcing feces into her bloodstream. He immediately started surgery.

"If Dr. Billy wasn't in the hospital, I don't think she would have made it," Walters said.

In her first night at Community Memorial, Maggie’s heart stopped in a “code blue.” The flow of blood halted. Her organs started to fail. Her hands and feet turned so black they looked as if they had been soaked in paint.

She was resuscitated but doctors worried she wouldn’t make it. Walters called her two sons and told them the news.

She survived, but her right hand was amputated. She also lost four toes and her thumb and a finger on her left hand. Her heart, lungs and other organs recovered.

“Everything came back but my kidney,” she said.

She feels lucky

Maggie started dialysis with hope it would spur recovery. Instead, she treaded water, surviving but not improving. Doctors told her she needed a transplant. Walters knew immediately he wanted to be the donor.

Maggie worries that what happened to her could occur again. Walters could give up a kidney, only to find out years later he needs it. But he’s determined and is going through tests to assess his health. Everything is a go so far.

“Honestly, I didn’t even think about it,” Walters said. “It’s just what you do for a loved one. No explanation.”

Stanford has accepted her as a candidate for a kidney transplant. She still has to go through more testing to get final clearance. She wants the same team of Stanford doctors who performed Chuck’s transplant to do hers. She doesn’t know when it will happen.

They’ve started a GoFundMe drive to raise money for housing near Stanford during the transplant and for the care Maggie will need afterward. Arlene Luna, Maggie’s foster daughter, made a request for help on Facebook.

“I can’t think of anyone else more deserving,” she wrote, urging her friends to repost her plea.

Margaret has lost her hand, fingers and toes. She needs Walters' help to eat, walk, even to change her jeans. And yet the point she emphasized is she feels lucky, mostly because of her friends and family and because she still has hope.

Her ex-husband thinks she’s lucky, too. He cited the national shortage of organs available for transplant. She has someone willing to give up an organ for her. He knows how that feels.

“We both got very lucky," he said. “It usually doesn’t happen that way.”

For information on Maggie Munoz’s GoFundMe, go to https://tinyurl.com/mr444bv2.

Tom Kisken covers health care and other news for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tom.kisken@vcstar.com or 805-437-0255.

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This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: California woman gave ex her kidney, now needs a transplant