A life-saving donation

SAUK CENTRE, Minn. — Fathers give a lot to their sons: guidance, security and an example to follow.

Wayne Bromenshenkel recently provided so much more when he donated one of his kidneys to his oldest son, Derek.

“I am very grateful,” Derek said. “This was the end of my road otherwise. To find out I had a donor in general was a huge relief, but it made it extra special because it was Dad.”

Derek is a software architect and comes to the family farm on a regular basis to help Wayne and his brother, Blake, who milk 60 cows and farm 670 acres near Sauk Centre.

Wayne donated a kidney to Derek April 17, giving him a second chance at life.

“I am going to get my son back,” Wayne’s wife, Pat, said. “When Derek was not here because he wasn’t feeling good and then was in the hospital, it wasn’t the same. Derek was missing for a while, but now we are whole again.”

Wayne and Derek are both home recovering from the successful surgery that took place at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

The day of the surgery, Derek, his wife, Heidi, Wayne and Pat, Blake and his wife, Kayla, and their sister, Kirsten Henrichs, were at the Mayo Clinic.

“You have two people you care about going in for surgery,” Heidi said. “They both need to come out of this successfully. We had a lot of people reaching out, saying they were praying for us. That helped ease our minds.”

Pat agreed.

“Anytime anybody asked what they could do, I said, ‘Pray,’” she said. “I don’t need food or anything besides prayers. It’s my husband and my son in there. I need both of them to come out of there OK.”

The father and son were in separate rooms for surgery preparation, but once everything was ready, the seven Bromenshenkels were together in the same room for a few minutes.

“We hugged everyone and Dad and I were the last ones in the room and we just said, ‘See you in a few hours,’” Derek said.

Wayne’s surgery lasted two hours, while Derek’s surgery lasted seven.

“The doctor came up to me after (Wayne) was done and said, ‘He gave him a good one; it instantly started working when we put it in,’” Pat said.

During both surgeries, the family members received text message updates from the surgical team.

“When they said Wayne was done and it went well, it was a huge sigh of relief because if anything happened to him when he was donating a kidney, Derek would never get over that.,” Heidi said.

Once Derek was done, he was placed in the intensive care unit for close observation.

“The first thing Derek asked when I was able to see him was, ‘How is Dad?’” Heidi said. “The first thing Wayne asked Pat was, ‘How is Derek?’”

Wayne’s hospital room was on the same floor as Derek’s room and Wayne was able to visit his son in person.

“Seeing Dad walking around and doing well felt good,” Derek said. “I was very surprised to see him up and walking around 18 hours after the surgery.”

The day after the surgery, Wayne was cleared to go home.

“You can never give (Dad) anything without him trying to pay you back three times over,” Derek said. “When he left Rochester, I said to him, ‘You gave me something that I can’t pay you back for.’ He is very giving to anybody, not just his family.”

Derek was taken out of the intensive care unit after four days and stayed in Rochester for the next two weeks. Every other day, he was tested to check for signs of infection or rejection of his new kidney.

“Once I got out of the hospital, I could tell right away that I was better,” Derek said. “It was a slow transition backwards before. You don’t realize how far you have fallen until you flip the switch back to normal.”

On May 1, Derek was able to come home.

Wayne is taking it slow at the farm. In the meantime, Blake and Henrichs are taking care of the farm.

“I never had two weeks of vacation in my life, and now I have to take it easy for six weeks,” Wayne said. “All the help we have received has been tremendous.”

Going forward, Derek will have to get his blood checked locally once a week until August. Then he will go back to Rochester for a comprehensive evaluation to check for signs of infection or rejection. If everything goes well, Derek will go down to only having his blood checked once a month for a year. Then he will only have to go in once a year to be checked.

“It feels surreal that this has happened,” Derek said. “This was as good of an outcome as it gets.”

Derek’s transplant journey started in 2016, when he was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease.

I had cysts growing on my kidneys, and over time, they grew and as they got bigger, they lost their ability to function, Derek said.

At the point of their removal, Derek’s kidneys weighed 6 pounds each, far more than normal kidneys, which weigh 10-12 ounces each.

Over time, Derek’s energy level dropped, and his skin grew itchy from the urea buildup. The last two years, the symptoms worsened.

“I would wonder every month if they were going to put me on dialysis,” Derek said. “The goal was to not go on dialysis and get a kidney transplant. It was always on my mind.”

In October 2024, Derek was diagnosed with kidney failure and was approved as a candidate for a transplant and placed on the deceased donor list. The doctors also recommended that the Bromenshenkels reach out to family and friends to see if they could get a living donor.

“We sent out a blurb with our Christmas card (asking) if anyone would be interested in donating a kidney,” Derek said.

In December, Wayne was one of many people who signed up to get tested.

“He needed a kidney and I knew I was healthy enough,” Wayne said. “Mine was a perfect match.”

The match made for a smooth transfer from father to son.

“It was really nice knowing Dad was my match because it was easier for logistics,” Derek said. “There were a lot of things that needed to happen from the time we found a match until the surgery.”

After three months of testing, Wayne was approved to be the donor for Derek and surgery was scheduled.

“Had it been another month or two later in the process, I would have had to go on dialysis,” Derek said.

But Wayne was there for him as he always has been.

Mark Klaphake contributed to this article.