Marriage means sharing: hopes and dreams, houses and cars, children. But for a California pastor and his wife, it also means sharing kidneys.
Liz Gastil donated one of her kidneys to her husband, Pastor Tom Gastil, on June 11.
“I’d be thrilled to give him a kidney, I really would. You don’t have many opportunities in your life to really save someone’s life,” she said prior to the surgery. “I feel like that’s a no brainer.”
Tom Gastil leads Aliso Creek Church (PCA) in Aliso Viejo, California. He has Alport Syndrome, a genetic mutation that attacks the collagen throughout the body and causes kidney disease. It’s a condition he’s lived with most of his life; he was diagnosed as a child. And while many people afflicted with the condition require a kidney transplant as young adults, Tom Gastil is 59.
“Part of my journey (with Alport Syndrome) is coming to grips with declining kidney function, yet feeling like I can ride this out. I’ve beaten the odds for decades and have believed I can continue to do so,” he said. “It’s significant – significant for [Liz], significant for me.”
For decades, Tom Gastil managed the condition with medications, diet, and exercise, overseen by the same nephrologist for the past two decades.
“I think I’m his longest-term patient,” Tom Gastil said. “He’s done an excellent job overseeing my health for 23 years.”
When Tom Gastil’s kidney function began to decrease more significantly, the nephrologist told him it was time for a transplant. He trusted him despite being “still, at the 11th hour, reluctant.”
Liz Gastil wasn’t reluctant. “I’ve always sort of thought if he needed a kidney, I’d give [him] one. That has been in the back of my mind for a long time, ” she said. “It’s great, it’s a blessing for me to be able to do it.”
The process is long. There were blood tests (17 vials to be specific). After they were found to be a match, there was psychological testing, evaluations, and countless meetings with medical personnel and social workers.
After the transplant, they each require 24-hour assistance for a month before Liz Gastil can take over as Tom Gastil’s caregiver.
“That first month is going to be really intense, recovering from surgery and waiting for the remaining kidney to kick up production,” she said. “But we have a wonderful group of people around us to help. I am so grateful.”
That group includes both family and community. Tom Gastil’s mother, now 96, and her neighborhood Bible study have prayed for his health since his diagnosis five decades ago. Tom and Liz’s two sons and daughter are helping provide daily care in the weeks immediately following the surgery. Liz Gastil’s co-workers at Corona del Mar Middle School have asked to help, and Aliso Creek Church, where the Gastils have served since 1998, has rallied behind them.
“I’m excited for how those spheres are going to intersect,” Liz Gastil said. “People are offering right and left to help. We’re grateful to have a community around to help us.”
But both the Gastils are also struggling to be at peace with their forced reliance on others.
“One of the things that really hits me about this is, we can’t do this ourselves,” Liz Gastil said. “I think that’s what God is working on in my heart, to be able to say I need help, and then accept it.”
Tom Gastil said he’s been using his “thorn in the flesh” as a sermon illustration. “One of the things my kidney disease has taught me is that I needed to receive a gift from Liz,” he told his church. “I would be a fool to say ‘no’ to the life-giving organ she’s graciously offering at great cost to herself. Yet some of you are saying ‘no’ to Christ, resisting the loving price he paid.”
And just as his own kidneys are failing him, so our own righteousness fails us, he said. “You must receive the righteousness of another, of Christ. Liz’s sacrifice for me brings home Jesus’ astonishing sacrifice for us.”