Positivity: TV newsman, daughter to donate kidneys
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
When Jack Marschall learned his brother-in-law needed a kidney, he was ready to make the sacrifice.
It turned out that the two men were incompatible. But Marschall’s daughter, Lauren, was a perfect match.
So on Sept. 11, both Marschall, a fixture on local television news shows since 1982, and his 23-year-old daughter will enter the Cleveland Clinic together and come out two days later a few ounces lighter. A surgical team will remove one of Lauren’s kidneys and give it to her uncle, Ken Jakubecz. At the same time, Jack Marschall and an unnamed recipient will be prepped and ready.
“I’ll get to see Lauren after it’s over, make sure she’s OK, and then the same doctor who removed her kidney will remove mine,” said Marschall, 55.
Marschall is now a reporter at WEWS Channel 5.
His daughter said: “It was an easy choice. I have two kidneys, I can live with one. Why not help a person I love?”
Marschall met Jakubecz when he first started dating Jakubecz’s sister, Sharon, whom he married 33 years ago. Jakubecz was a gunner on a helicopter during the Vietnam War, and he attributes his later health problems to his service . His kidneys started giving him trouble after a series of strokes almost a decade ago.
During a recent family gathering, Marschall saw the large lump on his brother-in-law’s arm - the site of the port used for his dialysis. Jakubecz had been going to dialysis three times a week for almost eight years.
“It bothered me to think how hard that must be for him. I think that’s when I made the decision,” Marschall said.
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