Pastor to donate kidney to ailing church member
Metuchen woman with type 1 diabetes to get new chance
BY JAY BODAS
Staff Writer

JAY BODAS This week the Rev. Rick Oppelt of Oak Tree Presbyterian Church is set to donate one of his kidneys to church member and Metuchen resident Carol Trapp as part of a transplant surgery scheduled for Aug. 29 at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital.

Oak Tree Presbyterian Church's pastor, the Rev. Rick Oppelt, has spent more than 12 years giving back to members of his congregation. But this week, he plans to do it in a way that hits closer to his heart.

Yesterday, Oppelt, 50, was scheduled to head to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick to donate a kidney to church member Carol Trapp, a diabetic.

Trapp, 58, had looked for kidney donors in her own family, but that was not possible, he said.

"Carol is very special to me," he said. "We have been close over the years, and I know what diabetes has done to her system. This is a chance to help her overcome some of that. Especially knowing the alternative - that being a wait of five years for a kidney in New Jersey."

Trapp has received many comforting phone calls and cards from church members.

"Most people get a kidney from a family member, though the church is like a second family to me," she said.

Trapp has been a diabetic for most of her life.

"I've had juvenile diabetes for 43 years, which is type one, the more severe kind," she said. "But back in October, my kidney function was starting to go down. For 43 years I didn't have too much of a problem, but in the last year things sped up quickly. The last time I was tested, my kidney function measured at less than 15 percent."

Oppelt offered his kidney after he overheard a conversation Trapp had with a fellow church member about her condition.

"Rick was eavesdropping on a conversation I was having with a friend," she said. "That was when Rick said, 'Oh, we have the same blood type, you can have one of my kidneys.' His wife later said she was so happy that he and I were a match. I couldn't have gotten it from a better person, since he wants to save my body and soul anyway."

"I didn't really think she would take me up on the offer," Oppelt quipped. "Yes, it was spontaneous, but I wouldn't have said it if I wasn't serious. I stuck by what I said ever since."

Trapp could only receive a kidney from someone who shared her O positive blood type.

Carol, a 20-year Metuchen resident and wife of Board of Education member George Trapp, spent much of last week preparing herself for the surgery.

"I get tired and cold a lot, but I'm also feeling very anxious to get this all over with," she said.

She planned to go to the hospital on Aug. 28 for dialysis. The surgery was scheduled for the morning of Aug. 29.

"They said it would be an hour to prep us, four hours for the surgery, and two hours in the recovery room," Trapp said in an interview last week. "But I should be sitting up the next day and be back home Saturday."

The next three months will be critical, Trapp said.

"If I don't reject the kidney in the first three months, then I likely won't reject it," she said. "Getting a kidney from a live donor usually means it would be good for 15 years, give or take."

Oppelt researched the issue of transplantation and discovered that a person only needs one kidney to lead a normal life.

"I did some research on kidney donors, and I found no negative experiences," he said. "People have no after-effects, and they function fine. You end up with 70 percent kidney function from the one kidney that remains, as it works harder to compensate. I don't even need to change my diet."

"And if God forbid, something happened where Rick needed a kidney transplant, he would go to the top of the transplant waiting list," Trapp said.

Currently, more than 90,000 people nationwide are on the transplant waiting list for at least one organ, with the kidney being the organ most in need, according to the nonprofit organization UNOS (United Network for Organ Sharing), which administers the United States organ matching and placement procedure.

Ever the pastor, Oppelt sees his involvement not as mere coincidence but as an example of God's will.

One of his colleagues said the donation takes pastoral care to a whole new level, he said.

"That's not the way I look at it," Oppelt said. "I look at it as responding to someone who has a need, and I was available. Without over-spiritualizing it, it is hard to identify any one kind of thing to be the hand of God or the will of God. But I have to believe that this is providential, that this is meant to be."