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By: Lauren Helper/MÁS staff

Over the past few months, 23-year-old Bakersfield resident Ernesto Gomez Jr. has been placed on a 24-hour heart monitor, subjected to a series of x-rays and laboratory tests, and undergone psychological evaluations. In the process, he’s dropped from 218 pounds to 193.

He’s not training for a marathon, applying for a job with the CIA or moonlighting as a lab rat.

He’s saving his sister’s life.

On Oct. 17 at St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles, Ernesto will donate a kidney to his sister, Deanna, 27, who has kidney failure as a result of a severe case of systemic lupus erythematosus, or SLE. The transplant, if all goes well and her body accepts the new kidney, will increase her life expectancy from 10 years to 25, 30 or even 40-plus years.

“The way they put it to me is that I will actually be saving two lives — Deanna’s and the person who gets moved up on the kidney waiting list,” said Ernesto, sitting in his family’s home in south Bakersfield with his mother, Rachel, and Deanna.

Rachel, 51, though worried for both of her children, sees it as the end of a painful chapter in her daughter’s life.

“I hope it will bring the beginning of a new life for her,” said Rachel.

Close calls, surgeries and solitude
Deanna had a normal, happy childhood. Father Ernesto Sr. was in the military and the family traveled often, even living in Germany for three years.

At 12, however, she became sick and was eventually diagnosed with lupus.

Just two years later, Deanna was hospitalized when her immune system began to attack her lungs.

Admitted to the ICU with pneumonia, doctors told the Gomez family she would likely not make it through the night.

“My parents called the rest of our family and they flew out from California,” recalled Deanna. “That’s when I got really worried. Family only comes out for three things — weddings, births, and deaths.”

Miraculously, Deanna recovered, but the hard times weren’t over.

A drug doctors were using to treat her condition, prednisone — a corticosteroid — caused her face to swell noticeably.

When she became too unwell to attend school in 1994, the family enlisted a tutor. She dropped out of high school completely in her senior year.

The family moved to Bakersfield to be with Deanna’s grandfather, who was terminally ill.

In 2002 and 2003, Deanna had both her left and right hips replaced.

When she was first diagnosed, Deanna “took it in stride,” but the setbacks and isolation began to break her spirit. At one point, she was taking nine pills three times a day. She’s had about 20 surgeries over the course of her relatively short life.

“I became a little bitter,” Deanna admits.

Deanna was dealt another blow when her kidneys began to fail about a year ago and she went on dialysis three times a week and quit her job.

The family also continued making trips out of town to consult doctors.

“It’s a financial issue. We struggle with traffic expenses,”  said Rachel, who noted that Deanna’s car broke down on a recent trip. “It’s like one step forward and 10 steps back.”

The transplant
Deanna’s life expectancy — if she simply remained on dialysis — is 10 years. A new kidney, however, could give her many additional years.

A person can be on the list for a transplant for five to 10 years. Hearing this, her family jumped at the chance to be donors.

Ernesto Sr. was quickly ruled out because of his high blood pressure. Then compatibility tests were run that looked at the match of human leukocyte antigens (HLA). Rachel was a four-out-of-six match, but sister Aida, 30, was even more promising — a five-out-of-six match.

Aida, stationed in San Diego with the Navy, is in great physical condition, and wanted to help, but Deanna refused because it would mean her sister — who doesn’t have kids yet — would have a high-risk pregnancy in the future.

Then little brother Ernesto volunteered and proved to be a perfect, “six-of-six” match, meaning all donor and recipient antigens mesh.

“I never drank or smoked. I play sports. I can handle the risks,” said Ernesto. “She deserves it.”

There are potential risks for Ernesto Jr. from the surgery and from having only one kidney. However, if Ernesto should get in a car accident, for instance, and need a new kidney, as a living donor, he would be at the top of a transplant list.

Looking ahead
During the MÁS visit to the Gomez home, Deanna was in good spirits.

The animal lover was surrounded by her pets — three dogs, two turtles and a bird.
If the transplant goes well, Deanna hopes to return to school and become a veterinarian. She earned her GED in 1999 and a degree from San Joaquin Valley College.

After the transplant, she’s hoping for something she hardly remembers having — a relatively “normal” existence.

She also wants to be a mom, even though a pregnancy would be risky.

“If something happens, I want my parents to still have a piece of me,” said Deanna, who plans to start a local chapter of the Lupus Foundation. “There has to be some reason I’m still here. I believe I’m alive for a reason.”