Alabama court security officer finds kidney donor close by
Macon County AL December 31 2018
Kathy Burkham is giving a man she didn’t know the ultimate Christmas present: one of her kidneys.
Burkham, who lives in Mount Zion, became familiar with Tom Butts’ dilemma after reading about his kidney disease in news reports and Facebook posts. Butts, 57, a former Decatur police officer who works as a Macon County Court security guard, has little of his own kidney function left, and survives on nightly dialysis at home, hooked up by his devoted wife, Sarah.
Now, thanks to Burkham who looks to be a compatible donor match, he has the prospect of getting his life back.
“I’ve always been a giver,” she said. “My mother always taught me you always help somebody else; strangers, anyone.”
Some tests and other procedures remain to be completed but, if all goes well, Butts will receive his new lease on life in a surgical procedure within two to six months.
Butts, who said he “feels like crap” pretty much all the time as a side effect of his disease, is now a man who can’t stop smiling.
“There is no way to describe how I am feeling now,” he said. “I mean, talk about the best Christmas present ever. Kathy is a lifesaver for me.”
Burkham already knew she was the same O-negative blood type as Butts and had undergone extensive medical testing over the summer because she had hoped to donate a kidney to a young woman friend.
That matching process didn’t work out, but she remembered it in the fall when she heard of Butts’ dilemma. She then got in touch with a hospital in St. Louis to get the matching process for Butts rolling.
Burkham, 54, who works with the Macon County Sheriff’s Office in a substance abuse program, said bringing joy and hope to others is almost a kind of therapy for the emotional pain that has affected her own life.
Her middle son Tyler, 23, died of an accidental drug overdose on June 13, 2009, and her oldest son Justin, 28, was killed in a car accident on June 13, 2013.
“When I asked Tommy Butts when his birthday was, he said June 13,” said Burkham, who has learned that life and death can unfold in some strange coincidences.
She never forgets how precious life is, however, and remembers who own long night of the soul after two of her children were taken from her.
“I thought I was going to die of a broken heart,” she said. “I remember telling my husband, Mike, to please say in my obituary I died of a broken heart, because I believed there is no way the human heart was designed to survive this kind of tremendous pain.”
Burkham came through it, emotionally scarred but resilient and, if anything, even more sensitive to the needs of others. When her 30-year-old autistic son, Sam, suffered kidney ailments 18 months ago as a side effect of medicine to treat pneumonia, she was told he could end up on long-term dialysis and might need a transplant.
Sam eventually got better, but his mother recalled feeling “absolutely terrified” at the prospect of her son having to try and find a new kidney, and that memory flared into her mind again when she heard of Butts’ need.
“It was another reason to help him,” she said.
