Phyllis Katz, Long-Time East East Real Estate Agent, Seeks A Kidney Donor

Phyllis Katz experienced one of the happiest moments of her life over the summer, becoming a grandmother, when her only child, daughter Samantha Cohen, gave birth to Dylan in July. Like any grandmother, she was eager to spend as much time with her grandson as possible, holding him, feeding him, bonding with him. But her ability to do that has been hampered by health issues that have taken a serious toll on all aspects of her life for several years.Ms. Katz, a Water Mill resident soon to turn 67, is in stage 5 kidney failure and has been waiting and hoping for a kidney donation since July 2017, when she started going for four-hour dialysis sessions three times a week in Southampton. The sessions are hard on the body, leaving Ms. Katz physically exhausted, and her declining health has made it impossible for her to travel into New York City to visit her grandson and daughter.

Despite that, Ms. Katz remains vivacious and upbeat, hallmarks of her personality that even serious health problems can’t entirely diminish. And she remains a viable candidate for a kidney donation, having recently successfully gone through the yearly approval process.

Ms. Katz’s kidneys have been slowly deteriorating over the last 20 years due to various unrelated health issues. An unexpectedly long and difficult hospital stay in October 2016, which included a surgery followed by multiple infections, made her condition worse, leaving her with less than 15 percent kidney function.

Ms. Katz is a true local, a lifelong East End resident and 1969 graduate of Pierson High School who was a fixture in Sag Harbor for years. Her family have been long-time congregants at Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor. She worked for nearly 20 years as a real estate agent with Corcoran, and in recent years has been a referrals agent for the real estate firm. Before going into the real estate business, she ran a boutique shop in Sag Harbor Village known as “Phyllis and Samantha.”

Ms. Cohen has been her mother’s primary caretaker and advocate, despite living in New York City and working full time while raising her infant son. She has worked tirelessly to try to find a kidney donor for her mother and said that while close to 50 candidates have emerged, they have all fallen through for various reasons.

“The testing process can be hard, and there are just a lot of little things that go into donating an organ,” Ms. Cohen explained.

Ms. Cohen is not giving up hope, and neither is Ms. Katz. She is still in relatively good health for someone who has dealt with various physical challenges, and most important, she feels that she still has a lot of living to do. Another small but significant factor in her favor is her blood type—she’s type A, a popular blood type that can receive a donation from someone with type A or type O (universal donor) blood.

A kidney donation would give her a new lease on life, and enable her to spend more time doing what she values most.

Kidney donation is safer and more reliable today than it was years ago, because of more rigorous vetting to determine if someone is an appropriate match. Having the appropriate blood type does not necessarily mean someone will be a match, but it is the first step in screening as a potential donor.

According to the American Transplant Foundation, kidney donors remain in the hospital for an average of three to seven days, and should expect four to six weeks for a full recovery.

According to the National Kidney Foundation, 26 million Americans have chronic kidney disease, and more than 101,000 people are on a transplant waiting list.

Because the kidneys are responsible for filtering excess water and waste out of the blood, people with poorly functioning kidneys often end up on dialysis, which does the work of the kidneys, removing the blood from the body via a fistula—the joining of an artery and vein under the arm to provide access to the bloodstream—directing it into a machine that cleanses the blood and then returns it to the body. While the procedure itself isn’t particularly painful, there is significant discomfort and side effects, including the possibility of a “bleed-out” after dialysis, and the numbness and discomfort in the right arm, where the fistula is located.

There are also dietary restrictions, including concerns about too much potassium in the blood.

March was National Kidney Month, and April is National Donate Life Month. Ms. Cohen hopes that will help raise awareness of her mother’s situation and the struggles men and women in need of a kidney donation face on a daily basis.

“Organ donation really has the ability to save and transform lives,” Ms. Cohen said. “It gives people the ability to fully live again. And more than anything, that’s what I want for my mom. A chance to be a grandmother, for trips to Disney, the zoo, and weekly visits. I was lucky enough to have that with my grandmother, and that’s what I hope for my son.”

Anyone who would like to be screened as a potential donor can contact the Stony Brook Transplant Office at 631-444-6944 or contact Samantha Cohen at scohen11963@gmail.com.