It's uncommon to need a transplant for even a single part of the body, let alone three. But for John Riehl of Iowa City, receiving cornea, kidney and pancreas transplants not only saved his life but also profoundly enriched it.
Riehl, a web content specialist for the University of Iowa Graduate College, has keratoconus, a progressive eye condition that leads to distorted and blurred vision. His vision in his left eye began to increasingly worsen in 2007, after the birth of his daughter, Avery.
“I would drive super slow at night, especially if I’d be in Iowa City where students could pop out at any time,” Riehl says. “I would try to give myself as much reaction time as possible because I knew I couldn’t rely on the left eye to provide any assistance.”
At the time, Riehl was working in Iowa City as a sportswriter for The Gazette, and his vision problems were starting to interfere with his job as well.
“I’d be covering a basketball game, and taking notes, and there would be instances where I’m like- who made that basket, and I would have to rely on other people for me to really know what was going on,” Riehl says.
In 2010, Riehl underwent a cornea transplant on his left eye at University of Iowa Health Care-Medical Center-University Campus. The surgery was performed by Dr. Kenneth Goins, with tissue from Iowa Lions Eye Bank.
“He called me in to do the surgery, and I sort of woke up a little bit during it. I wasn’t completely knocked out,” Riehl says. “I just started talking to him, and said ‘hey, if I’m bugging you let me know, tell me to be quiet.’ But he said it helped him to know how I was doing. I just remember that cornea coming down on top of my eye, which is a weird feeling.”
Soon after his surgery, Riehl says he could again see out of his left eye, just as well as his right eye, going from 20/200 with corrective lenses in that eye, to 20/25.
“It was like a whole new world that I was actually able to see,” Riehl says. “Life wasn’t such a struggle.”
After his cornea transplant, Riehl continued to see an optometrist at UI Health Care, and says they began to worry he might develop diabetic retinopathy.
“At that point, you know, diabetes had taken hold. It was running my life,” Riehl says.
Although he had just regained his vision, Riehl worried he might lose it again, and this time it might be permanent. Another cornea transplant would not be effective against diabetic retinopathy, because that disorder affects a different part of the eye that cannot be transplanted: the retina.
Aside from diabetes, Riehl had polycystic kidney disease, in which cysts form on the kidneys until eventually, the kidneys fail. At the beginning of 2021, his kidney function was down to about 30 percent- not great, he says, but enough to keep him active.
After catching COVID-19, however, his kidney function went down to about 15 percent, and he began meeting with the kidney transplant team at UI Health Care.
“They ask you a ton of questions to see if you’re actually healthy enough, if you have the right lifestyle, the support system, to be on the transplant list,” Riehl says.
During the screening, the surgeon came in and spoke with Riehl and let him know he was eligible for a pancreas transplant as well. That would cure him of diabetes, and he would no longer have to worry about his vision failing due to diabetic retinopathy.
Typically, Riehl says, to receive a kidney at UI Health Care Medical Center-University Campus, you might be waiting for three or four years.
“I was doing the math in my head, and thought that when the kids really get ready to be seniors and go to college, there’s a chance I could be on dialysis, I wouldn’t be able to go see them, and life would really suck,” Riehl says.
In the end, however, the wait only ended up being about a year. He was at Target in downtown Iowa City when he received the call that his transplant was imminent, as a young man was on life support and would be donating his organs.
Two days later, on December 21, 2022, after an eight-and-a-half-hour surgery at UI Health Care-University Campus, Riehl received his new kidney and pancreas.
Now, two years later, Riehl is feeling a lot better. He no longer has diabetes, but still must get frequent checkups and will take medications for the rest of his life to prevent his body from rejecting the transplanted kidney and pancreas. He also still uses eyedrops to ensure his transplanted cornea remains healthy.
Riehl says he is deeply grateful to his eye and organ donors, as well as their loved ones.
“I really wish I could talk to them, but it’s their call,” Riehl says. “You think ‘why me, how am I the lucky one?’ If I was in their place, would I want to meet the recipient? It seems like a good idea now, but if I’m in their place, I might think differently.”