As many Americans focus on holiday shopping, 34-year-old Mark Fenrich is celebrating the gift of life, which he’s received not once but four times. During his lifelong struggle with kidney disease, the New York IT project manager received a total of four kidney transplants from four different family members.
Fox News Digital spoke with Fenrich and one of his surgeons, Dr. John Bynon, from the Memorial Hermann Transplant Center at Texas Medical Center in Houston, about how his kidney transplant journey has “defied all odds.” He received his first transplant from his mother as a toddler at just 21 months old. He said, “As I grew up, my parents treated me like a normal child. They didn’t emphasize ‘that I had this looming thing in the background.’” When he was 12 or 13 years old, Fenrich’s kidney failed, and he needed a second transplant. This is when he realized his condition was a “bigger issue.”
The second transplant came from Fenrich’s father. He said, “Then once all the fanfare around the actual event itself settled down, I just kind of forgot about it for a while, other than taking my daily meds.” In 2015, when Fenrich was 26, he needed yet another kidney, which he received from his uncle. “We were hoping that would be the last one I needed, but it didn’t work out that way,” he said. In December 2022, Fenrich’s third transplanted kidney started to fail. On Jan. 1, he started on dialysis, a treatment that helps the body remove extra fluid and waste products from the blood when the kidneys are no longer able to do so.
He said, “I was bound to a dialysis machine three times a week, three hours at a clip. I joke that it’s the part-time job that nobody wants, but you have to do it literally just to survive.” Initially, Fenrich’s transplant doctors in Houston were hoping the kidney would regain its function, but too much damage had already been done. The doctors determined that he had a genetic disorder called aHUS (atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome), which causes small clots to form in the blood vessels, blocking blood flow to the kidneys.
His wife, mother and father put out the message to the extended family. At first, one of Fenrich’s cousins volunteered but ultimately changed his mind once at the medical center. Ultimately, his other cousin, Stephen DiGiorgio, offered to donate. A few weeks later, Fenrich received his fourth kidney in April 2023. The surgery was incredibly complicated, as each previous operation had “used up” a transplant site — “so we had limited places to put a new kidney,” Bynon told Fox News Digital. Another element of risk was that only about one out of five people who have had a previous transplant get a second chance at the surgery because they become “sensitized,” the doctor noted.
In Fenrich’s case, the surgery was a success. He described working with the team at Texas Medical Center as “a dream come true.” A few months later, he said he is feeling healthy and strong. Throughout the process, Fenrich said he has “never taken ‘no’ for an answer” and has advocated fiercely for himself. He said, “I don’t look at my kidney transplants as something that’s ever held me back. Energy-wise, I would say I’m better than where I was with the third transplant in terms of quality of life.” He said he is thankful for the family members who have stepped up and helped to save his life.