Keesler Kidney Transplant Story Shows Another Side of ‘Family Serving Family’

In early 2020, Sherry Martin, who supervised the firearms counter at the Keesler Air Force Base Exchange, noticed that Louis Jamison, the department’s sales area manager at the time, was not his usual self.

Sherry Martin and Louis Jamison of the Keesler Air Force Base Exchange say they share a special bond since she donated a kidney to him in December 2020.

“Louis had always been a goofy, perky energetic manager,” she said. “In January or February 2020, I noticed that he didn’t have that spunk anymore. He started to wear down a little bit.”

A couple of months later, Jamison started dialysis treatments. It was a time he expected to come.

“I was initially diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease when I was 22,” Jamison said. “It’s a degenerative, progressive disease that I inherited. From age 22, I knew it was coming, and now that I’m 53, it finally got here.”

Jamison and Martin began talking about his condition and the possibility that she could help her teammate in a big way—by donating a kidney.

“It turned out we were the same blood type,” Martin said. “I went home and talked to my wife and said, ‘Look, Louis is looking really bad.’ The first words out of her mouth were, ‘You want to see if you’re a match, don’t you?’ I said yes. ‘OK, what do we need to do?’ She never questioned it. She supported me through the whole process.”

They were a match. “The surgeon who handled our cases said, ‘For you guys not be related, your match percentage is phenomenal,’” Martin said.

Martin’s driver’s license listed her as an organ donor, but she had never considered that she might become a living organ donor. She says that since the December 2020 surgery, her single-kidney life has been pretty normal.

“I don’t even think about having only one kidney,” she said. “I do have to watch my salt intake, and there are certain medications I can’t take or can only take in limited doses. But for the most part, it’s just like living with two kidneys.”

Jamison has been with the Exchange about 20 years, 12 of them at Keesler. Martin has been with the Exchange 12 years and started working at Keesler in the spring of 2017, which is when she met Jamison.

The transplant strengthened the bond between Jamison and Martin. Martin said that she considers Jamison like a favorite brother. And they share a wry sense of humor about the transplant.

“They took out both of my kidneys and implanted one of hers,” Jamison said. “She said I couldn’t have the other one.”

“We get along on a different level than most associates do,” Martin said. “We don’t hang out outside of work but if we bump into each other, there’s a hug and I might say, ‘Hey, take care of my kidney.’ We have these inside jokes that have helped us form a much tighter bond.”

To learn more about organ donation, visit organdonor.gov.