From the young age of three, Patrick Boatsman knew that dialysis or a kidney transplant was in his future. He had a kidney infections at the age of 3 and had a more severe one at the age of 6.

It has been a life of watching his diet carefully and making sure to exercise to maintain a healthy weight and to make sure he didn’t put anything remotely damaging in his body. Reading every food label and the nutritional facts at restaurants has become a normal, everyday occurrence for Boatsman and his wife, Laurie.

The main purpose of a kidney is to clean the blood of toxins that come in contact with the body, balance body fluids and aid in other important functions of the body. If a kidney is not working properly, it won’t be able to clean the blood of toxins as well, if at all. Patrick had to watch what he ate so less toxins would have to be filtered out of his blood because his kidney was not working as well as it should.

Patrick didn’t have to worry about much besides his diet and exercise, until a little over three years ago. Patrick’s kidneys were failing and he had to start dialysis. Patrick went through dialysis through the Northwest Kidney Centers branch in Kent.

“It is unbelievable how clean the dialysis centers are and how wonderful they are,” Patrick said. “They know everyone by name and make sure to explain everything as clear as possible.” Patrick would get numerous calls from the dialysis center to make sure he knew everything that was going on, at all times.

When someone goes through dialysis, he has to be hooked up to a machine that cleans his blood. Needles the size of bicycle tire pump needles were put into his arm three times a week. His only way out of dialysis was to get a kidney transplant. Even if everything goes perfectly during dialysis, kidneys still only function at 20 to 30 percent compared to a normal kidney, Patrick said.

The next logical move was for Patrick to be put on a national organ recipient list, looking for a new kidney. Laurie automatically was tested to see if she was a match for Patrick. While she was a perfect blood type match, there is more to it than just being a blood type match, Laurie said. The better a kidney matched Patrick, the better the outcome. While her kidney would have worked just fine for Patrick, they were looking for a better match. Laurie decided to put her kidney on the national donor list, in case anybody else needed a kidney, she would happily donate it.

“It felt like we were on match.com for kidneys when we were looking for a kidney,” Laurie said. “There were so many specific things that doctors looked for when looking for a perfect match.”

In August 2016 Laurie and Patrick got some surprising news: the doctors had found a match for Patrick. While finding a match is lucky and surprising in itself, the news got even more surprising. Laurie was a match too, for the brother of the woman who was a match for Patrick. And they weren’t too far away either, the brother and sister lived in Whatcom County. It is rare to find a match and to find one that lived so close and one where they also needed a kidney is astronomically rare.

“To have my wife volunteer to have her kidney donated on my behalf was incredible,” Patrick said. “She is my hero.”

The double transplant is the first performed by The University of Washington’s Medical Center and it is only the second one performed in the west coast. The doctors cheered when they first realized this double transplant was a possibility.

Tests started for all four people right away and sure enough, they were a perfect match. Every type of test was done on all four of them to make sure the transplants would be successful. They decided to do the double transplant after the holidays and on Jan. 4 all four went into surgery. The donors and recipients were not allowed to contact one another until after 90 days of the transplant. Even though they were only a few doors down from one another, Laurie had not met the brother who was getting her kidney and Patrick had not met the sister that was donating her kidney to him.

They were finally all able to meet and exactly 90 days after their surgery, on April 4, they all finally met up.

“I just walked up to the sister and hugged her,” Laurie said. “It was a very happy and emotional time.”

Everything has been going great for Laurie and the sister who were the donors and Patrick and the brother who were the recipients. Since the surgery and for the next few months, Patrick has to be even more careful about his diet, exercise and what he exposes his body to. His immune system won’t be as strong as it used to be, for a while, so in the mean time, he has to be very careful.

“We’re basically on house arrest,” Patrick said.

Exposing himself to germs right now could cost him his life, Patrick said. Something as common as the flu could hospitalize him or even kill him. He cannot be around children or crowded places where germs are most likely to be. Laurie and Patrick are planning a trip soon where they have to fly and Patrick has to be very meticulous about his actions. He has to wear a mask on the airplane, not sit next to someone sick or a child, wipe down his seat and anything else around him with an antibacterial wipe.

Patrick and Laurie will take being extra careful with germs if it means Patrick gets to live a longer and healthier life.

“We already were very strict with our diets and exercise so we didn’t have to make any drastic changes like some people would,” Laurie said. “In that respect, we are very lucky.”

Patrick has more doctors appointments, medicines and tests ahead of him, but having a kidney that works is all worth it.

After going through the experience of dialysis and a transplant, Patrick and Leslie have a message they feel strongly about: take care of your bodies while you can, before it’s too late.

While Patrick was on dialysis for something he could not control, most people he met while doing dialysis were there because they had diabetes, something most of they time they could control.

“Dialysis is painful, long and takes a lot out of a person,” Patrick said. “Seeing these people go through it because they didn’t take care of their bodies was upsetting to see.”

Having a lifestyle that is full of chips, pizza and other foods that have zero nutrition will catch up to some people, eventually, Patrick said.

They try and spread this message to as many people as possible, because Patrick knows the pain of having to go through dialysis and wouldn’t want anyone to go through it.

Patrick and Laurie plan on traveling after Patrick gets better, since any vacation they have been on in the recent years always required stops at a dialysis center. Their vacations would revolved around if there was a dialysis center in the area they were going to, or not.