By Billy Watkins
The man in the photograph above is MRA head football coach Herbert Davis. He is battling — and I do mean battling — kidney failure. He needs a kidney transplant, but first he needs a donor. His life could depend on it.
The man who took the photograph is Mississippi Scoreboard’s Robert “Bob” Smith. He’s known Davis and his family for years. He’s photographed him regularly since Davis was hired at MRA in 2014.
And when Smith points the camera at Davis, he sees more than a football coach through the lens.
He sees himself.
Twenty-four years ago, Smith was suffering kidney failure. He and his wife, Lisa, were praying for a donor.
It turned out to be a friend from Brandon, Laura Tarbutton, who underwent testing to see if she might be a match.
Smith thought Tarbutton was joking when she informed him she was, indeed, a match.
“I got a little mad because she hadn’t said she was going to be tested,” Smith recalls. “But that anger lasted about one second. I was in shock.”
Tarbutton’s reasons for becoming a donor were fundamental.
“I watched Bob go down, down, down,” she says. “He’s like a brother to me. I wanted him to see his children grow up and graduate high school. I wanted him to know his grandchildren.
“My husband was fine with the idea of donating. My son was, too. One of my co-workers gave me a week of his vacation. This was a total God thing.”
Davis needs a Laura Tarbutton.
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Davis, who has won six state championships — including three at MRA — has had a rough go of it lately. He’s been hospitalized twice this month due to complications.
He missed the Patriots’ first two games of the season, both victories. Davis tweeted Monday that he had returned home, thanked people for their prayers and called his stays in the hospital a “tough experience.” He ended with “prayer is powerful.”
Smith is proof of that.
“That’s why we want to get word out to as many people as possible about being tested to see if they would be a huge part of Coach Davis’ miracle,” Smith says. “God wrote my miracle story, and He can write another one.
“I know there is someone in the Jackson metro area who matches Coach Davis. They might even be an MRA patron.”
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Smith, who lives near the Barnett Reservoir, got to know Tarbutton when he was a sales representative for an office supply wholesaler and she worked at Arts Supply in Jackson.
In 1996, Smith was diagnosed with End Stage Renal Disease when his blood pressure soared. His kidney function had fallen to about 50 percent.
“I wasn’t feeling myself,” Smith says. “I was retaining fluid and felt like I had a mild case of the flu all the time.”
In January 1999, a doctor informed Smith that he was suffering full kidney failure. He went into the hospital and was placed on dialysis, which involves a machine that filters the blood the kidneys no longer can.
“I still didn’t understand the gravity of the situation until I was told I’d have to have a kidney transplant,” Smith says.
As the dialysis continued for about 18 months, so did the wait for a donor.
“Lisa is a health care professional,” says Smith, a father of three. “She took amazing care of me. But the wait for a donor was tough. There was no sign of a living donor. And if you’re waiting on a cadaveric donor, that means you’re basically waiting for someone to die and that’s not a good feeling.
“It was better to receive a kidney from a living donor, anyway. A cadaveric kidney was projected to work for seven to 10 years while a kidney from a living donor was much more long term.”
Smith had his transplant at UAB Hospital in Birmingham. “It’s not the case now, but at the time they were doing a lot more kidney transplants than (the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson),” Smith says. “Today, I’d have it at UMMC. But UAB was terrific.”
Tarbutton underwent numerous tests to make sure she was healthy enough to live with just one kidney.
The transplant was performed on Dec. 13, 2000 — a Wednesday.
“I was up and moving around just hours after the surgery and stayed in the hospital for three or four days,” Tarbutton says. “And to this day I’ve never really had any problems from it. I have arthritis and I’m not able to take certain pain medication for it, but that’s been about it. I know that’s not always the case, but it has been for me.”
Smith’s stay was longer to make sure his body didn’t reject his new kidney.
Smith spent Christmas 2000 with his family in a tiny apartment provided by UAB.
“We went to see the movie ‘Miss Congeniality’ and ate Christmas dinner in the hospital cafeteria,” Smith says. “But I can tell you it was the best Christmas ever.”
Nearly 23 years later, Smith is “doing great” and visits his local kidney specialist twice a year for checkups.
“It was a complete second chance at life for me,” Smith says. “I’ve watched my three children (Anna, Spencer and Michael) become amazing adults. I’ve enjoyed watching my grandchildren grow up.
“When we get close to the transplant anniversary every year I get very emotional and reflective. But God did all this. He put me and Laura together for a reason. I call her my angel on earth. We have a bond that few will ever understand.”
It’s been tough for Smith to watch Davis face the same disease he did.
“I know what he’s going through,” Smith says. “My prayer through all of this is for people to research and understand the process of being a donor.
“I hope and pray Coach Davis receives the same miracle of life that I did.”
ABOUT BEING A KIDNEY DONOR
***More than 92,000 men, women and children in the U.S. are in need of a kidney transplant, according to the American Kidney Fund.
***Transplants are performed at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson.
***Currently, the vast majority of kidney donation surgeries are performed using minimally invasive laparoscopic techniques.
***Living-donor kidney transplants are the most widely studied type of living organ donation, with more than 50 years of follow-up information.
Overall, studies show that life expectancy for those who have donated a kidney is the same as that for similarly matched people who haven’t donated.
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Is that the same Bob Smith from Hanging Moss?
Yes Sir