Another surgery awaits dialysis patient who had expected to receive son’s kidney | The Kansas City Star

Alan Chapman, whose kidney transplant surgery got canceled on Valentine’s Day after a complication arose, has a new date with the operating table.

But not for a new kidney.

University of Kansas Hospital surgeons will operate on his windpipe March 7 to correct the problem that stalled the kidney surgery, Chapman said Thursday.

An anesthesiologist putting a breathing tube down Chapman’s throat on Feb. 14 discovered that the area below his vocal cords had narrowed to the size of a drinking straw. Normally, it would be about the diameter of a quarter.

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After the windpipe surgery, doctors will know more about future kidney transplant plans. For now, Chapman, 48, still has to undergo thrice-weekly dialysis.

His 24-year-old son, Tyler Chapman, still plans to give a kidney to his dad. Surgeons had opened Tyler Chapman and prepared for a kidney removal before sewing him back up on Feb. 14 with both kidneys still inside. That ruined what the family had expected to be their best Valentine’s Day ever.

Alan Chapman, who is diabetic, previously had a quintuple bypass and a separate surgery to remove a benign tumor from his colon. Testing has shown father and son to be such a good match that there would be only a 1 percent chance of Alan Chapman’s body rejecting his son’s kidney.