Former Brookfield Bartender Hunts For 3rd Kidney Donor

BROOKFIELD, CT — A Brookfield woman who has already beaten cancer — twice — and beaten back another dread disease is now struggling to find a third kidney donor.

Eileen Routhier, 51, suffers from Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, an inflammatory disease that occurs when a body's immune system attacks its own tissues and organs.

Routhier was first diagnosed with the ailment in her early 30s. Her particular bout with SLE keyed around her kidneys, which completely shut down in 2002. The cavalry arrived in the form of her sister Heather, who donated a kidney so Eileen could stay in the game.

Those extra innings lasted 15 years, before her kidneys again began to fail, and Routhier needed another transplant. Both her children, 32 and 24, were tested, but proved incompatible donors.

"Something about our antibodies," Routhier said, so the donor net needed to be cast more widely. In the meantime, she went on dialysis, and crossed her fingers.

In early 2016, a co-worker at the Down the Hatch tavern in Brookfield, where Routhier moonlighted tending bar, stepped up and proved compatible. Later that year, Nancy LaVoie donated a kidney, Routhier's second, and the game continued.

"And then I started getting sick, and I found out I had breast cancer," Routhier told Patch.

Routhier had surgery, which included a mastectomy, to remove the cancer. While wrapping up that treatment, doctors discovered squamous cell carcinoma, a form of skin cancer, had taken hold. So she went and kicked that cancer, too, but not before the treatments generated a series of infections which caused scarring of — wait for it — her kidneys.

She is back on dialysis, and has been searching for a new kidney donor for almost a year.

As if contributing a kidney wasn't enough, LaVoie has once again stepped up and is championing the campaign to find her friend's third organ donor. She and other "friends of Eileen" are responsible for that massive billboard near the intersection of Federal Road and White Street in Danbury, and the various posters and table promotions you may have seen in Brookfield and Newtown pubs.

The promotions, website and social media have gotten the word out, Routhier said, but so far it's been all nibbles and no bites.

"It seems that people get the idea, but then they don't follow through," she said.

A kidney donation is not an easy ask, obviously, but Routhier fears there's a clock running that nobody's talking about.

"Dialysis, every time you go, ruins your body more and more," she said. "A lot of people die on dialysis."

The first step for those considering a kidney donation begins with a questionnaire from the National Kidney Registry to verify preliminary compatibility.