A Different Kind of Selfishness

You want to believe you could do what Joe Horzepa did – give up a part of yourself (in his case, a kidney) so a friend may live. Yes, you really want to believe your goodness is stronger than your fear ... of dying from complications while under the knife ... of one day coming down with a diseased kidney yourself and not having a backup.

Horzepa, a 33-year-old corporate attorney who bases his analyses and actions on careful research and a personal philosophy that sees the glass as half full rather than half empty, suspects that more of us would do what he did if we only knew the truth.

“The truth,” he says, “is that there is nothing more exhilarating.”

In other words, nothing feels better than sharing the goodness that flows within your soul. Certainly not the rush you get from skydiving, he says. Or the high you receive from mountain climbing. Your life, Horzepa argues, is never as full as when you’re sharing it.

Believe it or not, he says, sharing something of yourself so another may benefit – and having to overcome very real fears to do so – “is really kind of selfish.”

Talk about a different definition of selfishness.

“Life becomes so much more meaningful when you accept the challenge of helping someone out,” Horzepa says. “So much of life seems inconsequential now. My perspective is different. I now understand the real meaning of the French joie de vivre – I have a joy of life that wasn’t there before.”

In March at St. Luke’s, Horzepa changed his life – and 37-year-old Mike Clark’s. They had known each other for five years when Charles Van Buren, M.D. and Richard Knight, M.D., performed the transplant surgeries.

Clark, a brother of Marie Clark, director of cardiovasacular and transplant services at St. Luke’s, is an entrepreneur who launched the computer security software company, PentaSafe, in 1997. Begun with only four employees, it now has 350, with offices around the world. At first, Horzepa worked for a law firm which advised Clark on legal issues. As the business grew and Clark relied more on Horzepa’s advice, he hired him as PentaSafe’s general counsel. Their business dealings grew into a friendship.

In 1994, kidney disease left Clark on dialysis. His brother, Fred Clark, donated a kidney to him. For years, all seemed fine. Clark felt secure enough in his health to wed the woman he had dated for five years. But last year, the donated kidney began to fail. It turned out that tests administered eight years ago weren’t sophisticated enough to pick up a particular kind of antigen problem. Other family members – Clark has three sisters and two brothers – hoped to donate a kidney this time. But all share the same biological trait that would cause Clark to reject the organ.

When word got out that his own family couldn’t donate, six of Clark’s business colleagues and friends immediately offered to help.

“It’s one thing when it’s in your family,” says Clark, who recently started PointSecure, another software firm. “It’s somewhat easier to deal with emotionally. But when it’s a friend, the feeling is just overwhelming. There’s nothing to describe how incredible you feel when someone wants to help you that way. You couldn’t ask someone to do that.”

It is difficult for Horzepa, generally so facile with words that he reminds you of “Nightline’s” Ted Koppel, to talk about why he chose to donate a kidney.

“Mike’s a heckuva guy,” he says, more than a tad emotional. “I just wanted to help him out.”

It didn’t hurt that he was able to talk to the earlier donor, Fred, a private detective who resumed skydiving and mountain climbing shortly after donating his kidney to his brother.

“I found out that in his case there weren’t problems,” Horzepa says. “Living with just one kidney isn’t a problem at all ... many people do it and aren’t even aware of it. I never worried about Mike rejecting my kidney like he did Fred’s. The doctors explained that could be possible. But I really just wanted to help. That was the overriding thing.”

Horzepa says he was feeling good three days after the operation. He says he now runs faster than he used to around Memorial Park. He pumps iron regularly.

It is true, however, that Horzepa wouldn’t have so readily offered to donate a kidney if he wasn’t sold on the “high-tech, high-touch” medical care reputation at St. Luke’s. Recently, he and Clark visited staff members to thank them. They knew them by heart, or rather, by kidney.

“St. Luke’s is such a class act,” Horzepa says, looking out the window of his 18th floor Galleria office toward the Texas Medical Center. “One night when my mother was not able to spend the night at the hospital, Jamar Agomo, a personal care assistant at the hospital, offered to spend the night in my room - on his own time free of charge - after having already worked a full shift. You don’t know how good that makes someone feel.”

Don’t ever think that Horzepa is ashamed of his scar.

“It’s a great conversation starter at the pool. Actually, I’d like to see photos of people who donate organs and the people they give them to showing off their scars on the cover of magazines. It seems to me like it’s a beautiful thing and would encourage others to do the same. You feel so much better when you help others.”

How selfish.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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