Son gives mother kidney in milestone
JACKSON, Miss. – When her kidney failure got to the point that Tawanna Davis was attached to a dialysis machine three times a week, she knew the next step was a transplant.
On June 28, her 25-year-old son and only child, Quinten Hogan, made that possible when his left kidney was nestled into his mom’s abdomen. Not only did 45-year-old Davis get a second chance at life, she and her son made history at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
Davis received the 3,000th organ transplanted at the state’s sole academic medical center and transplant program. The first came in June 1963, when Dr. James Hardy performed the world’s first human lung transplant.
“Any day that you do a live donor surgery, it’s a great day,” said Dr. Christopher Anderson, the James D. Hardy professor and chair of UMMC’s Department of Surgery. “Living donation is such a wonderful gift. It changes many lives – not just the recipient and the donor, but the whole family.”
Anderson removed Hogan’s kidney; Dr. Felicitas Koller, associate professor of transplant surgery, implanted it next to Davis’ two diseased organs.
“To do a live donor transplant on this occasion was extra special,” Anderson said. “This is a landmark number, and it’s telling that the majority of those have been done in the last decade. It speaks to the institutional commitment for transplant in the state of Mississippi.”
Because she received her kidney from a living donor, Davis got her transplant mere months after the decision was made. The Mississippi Organ Recovery Agency says that of the 1,300 Mississippians waiting for an organ transplant, about 900 need a kidney – and most of those won’t get one for an average three to five years.
Hogan’s surgery ended at about 11:30 a.m. His mom’s began about an hour later, and her son’s kidney turned pink and immediately began producing urine as Koller completed the surgery.
From start to finish, the combined procedures took about eight hours.
It was December 2021 when Davis, a former corrections officer who battled hypertension and diabetes for years, was hospitalized at UMMC for 11 days. After her release, she began dialysis in Waynesboro for three and a half hours, three times a week.
Hogan, who now lives in Atlanta, had been watching his mom’s health. In October 2021, he decided to get bloodwork done to determine if he’d be a match to give Davis a kidney.
“I had my mind made up a year and a half ago. It really wasn’t a tough decision,” Hogan said. “We threw it up in the air once or twice, but she always said it would be the last option unless push comes to shove.
He was scared that he wouldn’t be a match.
“He matched up. When he told us, I was in tears. We were all in tears,” Davis said of family members that include her husband, Spencer Davis. “We questioned him to make sure he wanted to do it. That’s a big change. He let us know that he’d made his mind up.
“It was overwhelming. A lot of people don’t match.”
Hogan was well enough to leave the hospital barely two days after his surgery. Davis was discharged July 1, with her stay shorter than many patients who receive a deceased donor transplant.
“It was beautiful,” Koller said of the transplant. “This momentous occasion being a living donor makes me feel very positive and hopeful for the future.
“When I reflect upon this day, the thing that makes me happiest is remembering the people on our transplant team, the new residents, the new medical students,” Koller said a few moments after completing Davis’ transplant.
Hogan is grateful for the gift of life – the life he has, thanks to the woman who bore him.
For information on becoming a living organ donor, contact University Transplant Administrator Dean Henderson at (601) 815-5886.