By Bob Paschen
Staff Writer
Eleven-year-old Julie Lindsey touched the serpentine surgery scar on her stomach and humorously recalled the joke she tells Adam Bowen, the 26 year-old music producer from West Jefferson who in December gave Julie one of his kidneys.
“I have five kidneys—two in the back, one in the front, and two here (pointing to her “kid” knee-caps)—and you have one.”
Then she laughs.
After battling for years a rare, life-threatening kidney disease that sharply stunted her growth, Julie Lindsey, with a new kidney and a new lease on life, has become like her friends—a sarcastic, precocious, smiling adolescent. The stoop-shouldered worry, and sad eyes are gone.
In September 2005, when the Galloway Ridge Intermediate School student was struggling to find a donor, she was drinking a glass of water every five minutes to flush her shrunken, mal-developed kidneys, and she was facing a lifetime of dialysis, and, frankly, much deeper complications.
In late November, that all changed.
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The first time Adam Bowen heard about Julie Lindsey was during a prayer meeting with Scott Davis, father of Destiny Davis, Julie’s classmate and friend.
Davis and Bowen are on the Worship Team—a musical pre-sermon ensemble—at the Victorious Living Christian Center on Columbus Street in Grove City.
“(Davis) said he had a request pray for a donor for eleven-year-old Julie,” recalled Bowen, “and I just felt that it was me. I went up to Scott and I said, I really feel like I’m the one. I called up the pre-transplant center and I said, This is Julie’s donor.”
The sense of calm clarity and determination that overcame Bowen had happened at other times in his life, he said.
Several years ago, Bowen was in the U.S. Army, stationed in Turkey where, in his room, he had created a sound studio.
“I was a lifer. I was really a squared away army soldier.”
But after a friend encouraged him to apply to music school, and after Bowen was immediately accepted, he cancelled his reenlistment orders, changing in a moment the direction of his life.
That same feeling urged him to donate his kidney.
Julie was days from beginning dialysis, a process that complicated and made more dangerous all future transplant surgery, when doctors called her and said that they had a surprise donor. He was healthy, and the tests all looked good.
“It was really exciting,” said Julie, who, while telling her story, leaned close to Adam sitting near her on a couch.
“They came to my church,” said Adam.
“We prayed together,” said Sarah Olkkonen—Julie’s mother.
On Dec. 7, Adam and Julie were being wheeled into adjacent operating rooms at the Ohio State University Medical Center.
“When I saw the surgery room, I was scared. I was alone. I started crying,” said Julie.
Bowen said that when doctors gassed him, he started hearing “reverbs.” Then, blackness.
Three hours later Julie woke up and told doctors that on their increasing pain scale of 1-10, the pain in her stomach was a 10.
Though 11, Julie has the body size of an eight-year-old, and doctors had to squeeze Bowen’s adult-sized kidney tightly into her stomach.
With one IV in her neck and four in her arms, Julie was being given nutrients and pain medication, and soon after waking, she slipped back into unconsciousness.
“I started getting worried,” said Sarah.
Meanwhile, Bowen was already making a fast recovery.
Then, slowly, Julie’s pain began to level off and she was fully alert, her health, stabilizing.
“We had rooms across from one another and waved at each other from ICU,” said Bowen.
Doctors always kept Julie and Bowen together, said Sarah.
The transplant surgery was on a Wednesday and Julie was walking by Friday. “Now, I can run. I can’t jump yet.”
Julie said she can feel her stomach sticking out where Bowen’s kidney is.
Bowen said that doctors “inflate you” with air, when you donate a kidney, and when now he lays on his side, “it feels like there’s no support there” inside.
Julie said her intense water cravings have gone away, and she has developed a new taste for milk, juice, and, like most young girls, sweets. And Sarah, looking at her small daughter, said, “I think she’s already starting to grow.”
Julie said that though she has only known Adam Bowen for three weeks, it “seems like long ago” they met.
Bowen agreed.
Both said they “feel close” to one another. Sarah calls them “best buds.” They have movie nights together, and eat popcorn.
Bowen said he has one sister, who is ten years older. Julie, heretofore an only child, thumbed at Sarah’s protruding stomach.
“There’s one on the way,” Julie said. Julie will have a baby brother in February when Sarah gives birth.
But Julie now has a special kind of brother in Adam Bowen, a man who gave this little girl his kidney, and saved her life.
“This is the best Christmas present ever,” said Sarah.
With expensive medications and a high surgery bill, Julie still needs financial support. If you are interested in contributing, log onto http://saving4Julie.tripod.com, or go to cota.org, and, clicking “Campaigns,” search for the name of Julie Lindsey.