Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 32, Number 9, 1 September 2015 — A gift of life that created a brotherly bond [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A gift of life that created a brotherly bond

By Lisa Asato Maleolm Lutu and Pono Shim weren't close friends in high school at Kamehameha Schools in the early 1980s, but now they consider eaeh other family. He's "just like my brother," says Lutu, a Honolulu Poliee Department detective who received a kidney from Shim in December 2013 after living with kidney disease for years. "He's accepted by my family as basically one of us. My dad considers him another son." Lutu and Shim were a year apart at Kamehameha, with Shim admiring the elder Lutu's athleticism in football as well as his kindness. "I never saw Maleolm

picking on anybody. He never picked on me. I saw him being kind to people more than anything," said Shim, whose cousin Waipa Parker was best friends with Lutu in high school. Shim, who is president and CEO of Enterprise Honolulu, the O'ahu Eeonomie Development Board, learned of Lutu's illness in 2008 and

would see Lutu maybe twice a year. "His energy was good, he was positive," Shim said in an interview in April. But in 2012 Shim heard Lutu's condition was worsening and friends who got tested as possible donors were determined not to be a match. "What's his blood type?" Shim asked a mutual friend. "O positive," the reply eame. It was Shim's blood type, notable for being a universal donor. "I called Maleolm and told him I have his kidney. And I asked him to eall his doctor so that they ean tell me what to do. He said, 'Shoot!' andhe never called me back." Shim would leave phone messages for Lutu every week, expressing his intent to be his donor. His calls went unanswered for almost two months. "I knew he was struggling," Shim said, meaning he knew it was hard for Lutu to accept a kidney from someone and possibly put their heahh at risk. "That was the hardest decision for me and my family to make," Lutu says of accepting Shim's kidney. "I didn't expect anybody to step up and do what Pono did."

As far as his own family, Lutu says he didn't want his siblings to be tested as donors, because it was possible that the disease was hereditary. His mother, who had diabetes, had died in the 1990s and his father was healthy, but he didn't want to put himthrough that, Lutu says. Lutu, meanwhile, had undergone muhiple surgeries over the years to prepare him for dialysis, whieh he received, and to treat related infections. He was fighting an infection right around the time he got the eall from Shim. Still, initially, Lutu, 53, recalls, "I kind of blew him off. He was persistent." Lutu connected Shim with the transplant center, thinking the more Shimlearned about it, he would change his mind. It only increased Shim's determination. After Shim's iniīial conversation with the center, Lutu says: "Two weeks later he's telling me he has a meeting (with the transplant folks). The next eall I get he said he's testing this, testing that. "Then I realized this guy he's actually going through with it. It's amazing for me and my family," says Lutu, a married father of five who has held the state titles in powerlifting for six consecutive years in the 1980s and Hawai'i's strongest man for three years in the 1990s. To help assuage Lutu's worries, Shim, 52, who is married and has an adult daughter, began working out. He began running up to 10 or 20 miles a week, swimming and hiking 4 miles a week-just so he couldleave a phone message for

Lutu. "The reason I trained so hard is to give him confidence that I was going to be so strong that I would reduce the risk," says Shim, who believes the "hardest thing to do was to allow somebody to do this for you. That's the biggest hurdle in this whole deal." "I knew I could not logically convince him that it was OK to accept my kidney," Shim says. "He just had to somehow have more and more eonhdence that I was going to be able to make it and he could accept a gift like this." Accepting such a gift is especially hard for Polynesians and Asians, Shim says, because "that's our culture, right?" But, he adds, it's also part of our culture when we weleome someone into our home to offer them food. And even though they say no, "I'm going to eook something and we're going to eat anyway," Shim says. "Even though Maleolm couldn't ask me, what did I do? I had to feed him anyway, because that's our culture." Since the day of the surgery, Dec. 2, 2013, at Queen's Medical Center, Lutu has had three kidneys - two of his own and one of Shim's. In an interview in April, Lutu said: "I'm doing good. One hundred percent turnaround from what I was." He was back to a regular workload at the poliee department after about two years on light duty. His improved heahh has "kind of rejuvenated my career," Lutu says. "I just have so mueh energy - how I used to work in the '90s doing a lot of things. It's changed everything in my life." Shim also is doing well. Early on after the surgery he had a setback and landed in the emergency room with "full-blown hives" after returning too soon to his errands and workouts. "I should have let my body rest," he says. "Now I know that." After two weeks of letting his body recover, "I was just fine and been fine ever since." Shim's blood pressure has been steady and his kidney function is so good it compares to someone with two kidneys, he says. For his family, and for Lutu, Shim says he works out even more now than he did before the surgery. (As an organ donor, he says he also wants to keep his heart, lungs and everything in top shape so they ean benefit future recipients.) Lutu calls Shim a "workout maehine." "And it all started from him trying to get in shape for the surgery," he says. Today, Lutu and Shim share their experiences with others going through the same thing. The overarching goals, Shimsays, includes increasing awareness about early testing for kidney disease and becoming a living donor. ■ This is part of a seri.es of stori.es hi.ghUghti.ng Native Hawaiians and ki.dnev disease.

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Pono Shim, left, and Maleolm Lutu in a photo taken this summer. AT LEFT, A news clipping of Lutu, who was Hawai'i's strongest man for three years in ihe 1 990s. - Courtesy photos