Libby and Robert Esker

Kidney transplants carry a success rate of about 79 percent five years after the operation.

At such a high rate of success, Robert Esker of Waterloo believed the kidney he received in 2011 — when diagnosed with kidney failure — would sustain him for the rest of his life. However, five years later, he found himself needing yet another transplant.

“It’s pretty hard realizing your own mortality and knowing you have to get another one,” Esker said.

The first kidney donated to Esker came from a deceased organ donor — Esker’s wife, Libby, wanted to donate one of her kidneys, but Robert refused.

“This time everything happened so fast, I didn’t have a choice,” Esker said.

Libby wasted no time finding out she was a match for her husband and the two prepared for surgery in September, which ended in success. Esker estimated he would spend a total of one to one-and-a-half months in recovery.

Yet, with what Esker has faced with two failing kidneys in his life, that recovery time is small in comparison. Esker now does whatever he can to bring awareness to the amount of people on an organ transplant list.

“People die every day waiting on organs,” he said. “From my point of view, that’s a waste.”

In fact, americantransplantfoundation.org states that about “22 people die every day from a lack of available organs for transplant.” The state of Illinois’ sole requirement for becoming an organ donor is that the person is at least 18 years old.

To register to be an organ donor, Illinois residents can do so in person at a DMV facility when applying for or renewing their driver’s license.

Online registration is available at ilsos.gov/organdonorregister/. To register for the national database, go to register.organize.org. Esker listed donatelife.net as another avenue.

Esker’s mother, Catherine, also advocates for organ donor registration after what she went through with her son.

Catherine remembers feeling overwhelmed five years ago when first receiving the news about her son, but used the support of the community to pull through. The Valmeyer woman especially needed hope when she tried to donate one of her kidneys to her son but was rejected.

Most of that came from the congregation of Hope Christian Church in Columbia — they prayed for the family during the rough time. Now, Esker and his wife, Libby, in their third year of marriage, hope to move forward in their life together.