Six days after his return, “Nate has high spirits,” says his mother, Keisha Forbis. “He’s full of energy — a walking miracle.
“They said he would have more energy and he does. He’s full of life.”
Nate’s hospital stay saved his life: On Oct. 16, 50-year-old Alan Brunnet donated a kidney to the then 6-year-old boy who was born with one kidney instead of two. Before the operation, he was suffering with chronic renal failure. After the operation, complications further endangered his life.
“Having him home puts a whole new meaning to the word Thanksgiving, and we have a lot to be thankful for,” Keisha said. “We are very, very blessed.”
In September, Brunnet heard that Nate needed a new kidney and wanted to help. He had his blood tested, and his type O-positive blood matched Nate’s. A friend of the Forbis family for almost 20 years, Brunnet decided to donate a kidney to the youngest Forbis.
“From what I understand Alan is doing great, but he’s got a little bit of cabin fever. His wife is having a hard time keeping him in the house,” Keisha said. “He’s a remarkable man. He’s given us the best gift ever.”
Brunnet and his family live just down the road from Henry Forbis, the boy’s father, in Lumber Bridge. They attend the same church, and Brunnet’s youngest son works on the Forbis farm.
“They’ve been good friends for a long, long time,” Brunnet said. “I want that little boy to have a good life. I want him to be happy and play like I did when I was a little boy. I want him to fulfill all his dreams like I had the chance to do.”
While his wife and youngest son were “all behind it,” Brunnet said his oldest son at the Ft. Lewis Army base in Washington was “worried about Dad’s health. I told him not to worry about it. ... I wasn’t nervous at all. I left it in God’s hands.”
Brunnet left the hospital after three days, but Nate was in the pediatric intensive care unit for three weeks.
A week after the transplant, Nate experienced major complications — bleeding in his lungs and a flare up of Fifth Disease, a mild rash accompanied by a fever.
“We were pretty worried there at one time,” Henry said.
Nate required four blood transfusions and was on a ventilator for two weeks.
“How did I feel? There’s not a word for that,” Keisha said. “It was very hard because we didn’t know what was wrong when everything happened. We didn’t know what was going to happen.”
Keisha and Henry, who are separated, were at the Chapel Hill hospital for five weeks as their son recovered.
“His brothers are happy he’s home,” Keisha said. “We tried to keep as much from them as possible, other than to say Nate was having a harder time recovering from the transplant than we thought. We didn’t want to worry or upset them, or distract them from their schoolwork.”
Brunnet brought Nate a get-well toy helicopter on Nov. 13, three days before he was released from the hospital.
“They told me, ‘we don’t know how to thank you.’ I told them you don’t need to thank me,” Brunnet said. “Seeing him healthy, with color, jumping all over the place — that’s all the thanks I need right there.”
After a slow start, the kidney is working well.
“His color has come back to normal, he’s no longer yellow,” Keisha said. “He’s eating more than he’s ever eaten. He has a great appetite, he’s very vocal.”
Tuesday, a week after he returned home, Nate went back to Chapel Hill for an ultrasound.
“He looked real good,” Henry said after the checkup. “He’s not near as puffy as before; he was retaining a lot of fluid in his body because the kidney wasn’t working. Now his color is better, he’s got more energy.
“He’s more of a ball of fire now than he ever was.”
A fund-raiser lunch to help pay for Nate’s medical expenses on Oct. 2 at Lumber Bridge Town Hall raked in tens of thousands of dollars in meal sales and donations from across the state. The money will go entirely to medical expenses: hospital stays, medicines, and travel to Chapel Hill.
Marvin Lynn Maxwell, a parishioner at Lumber Bridge Presbyterian Church with the Forbis and Brunnet families, organized the fund-raiser. The Town Hall was packed for about three hours, Keisha said.
“It was awesome,” Brunnet said. “I have a lot more faith in people now. That little boy is like a messenger from God. He brought the whole community together, the whole region together. Everybody and their uncle came to buy a plate.”
Keisha, Nate, and his three brothers — ages 8, 10 and 11 — drove two hours southeast of their home to attend the lunch.
“Throughout all of this, we have had a tremendous amount of support from the community through e-mails, through friends, friends of friends and people we have never met before praying for Nate and giving us strength and encouragement,” Keisha said. “That helps so much.”
Now Nate is not allowed to leave the house outside of doctor’s visits as his body recovers from the stress of accepting a new organ.
“He’s in the best spirits, he really is. To have gone through what he’s gone through, he’s an amazing child, a strong child,” Keisha said.
Forbis will return to Greenville Christian Academy in January; this week he started catching up on seven weeks of homework.
“It’s been a long road,” Keisha said through tears. “But seeing him, watching him wake up, watching him tell you that he loves you, hearing his voice — those are the little things we take for granted, but it makes it all worth it.”
PATTY