Jim Duquette, Former NY Mets GM, Donates Kidney to His Daughter

In the latest feel-good story of the year, former Mets general manager Jim Duquette donated one of his kidneys on Monday in hopes of giving his 10-year-old daughter a normal childhood.

For the past year Lindsey Duquette, who suffers from a rare kidney disorder named focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), has spent a large portion of her day tethered to a dialysis machine after both of her kidneys shut down and had to be removed.

On Monday, Jim, now an MLB analyst and Sirius radio host, was scheduled to go under the knife at Johns Hopkins Hospital and give his daughter the greatest gift she could receive: a new kidney and hopefully a new lease on life, freeing her up from the ravages of FSGS.

“When we started out with this whole thing, I never would have imagined we’d have ever gotten to this point,” Duquette told the NY Post by phone over the weekend. “But Lindsey’s been dealing with this since she was 2 1/2.’’

Following Lindsey’s kidney transplant, doctors say there is a 50/50 chance that her body will reject the new organ. Should her body accept the new kidney, Lindsey then has a seventy percent chance that FSGS wont return.

“I like those percentages,” Jim Duquette said. “We’re pretty hopeful.’’

According to the Post, FSGS, for which there is no known cause or cure, is a rare disease that attacks the kidney’s filtering system (glomeruli) causing serious scarring. More than 5,400 people are diagnosed with FSGS each year and it is the leading cause of kidney failure in children.

“More research is necessary to figure out the pathways, where the disease is coming from and what causes it,” said Henry Brehm, executive director of the NephCure Foundation, which supports research to find a cure. “Until the scientists figure out what causes it, we can’t develop a therapy or drug.”