WASHINGTON — One NFL brother has given the gift of life to another.
Ma’ake Kemoeatu, who has played for the Ravens and the Redskins, donated a kidney to his younger brother, former Steelers player Chris Kemoeatu.
“I’m a Raven, he’s a Steeler, and at our household it’s kind of split in half,” said Ma’ake at a Wednesday press conference in Baltimore. “But for this procedure, we kind of had to come together.”
The transplant took place Aug. 27 at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore.
Chris has been fighting kidney disease for years.
“We had to stop our careers,” Ma’ake said. “He had to stop his, I had to stop mine, because his health was most important to us.”
Initially, their father wanted to be the one to donate a kidney. Ma’ake wouldn’t have it.
“I’m the oldest of the seven kids, so it was my responsibility,” Ma’ake said.
Chris was concerned about how the transplant would go.
“I’m scared of needles,” he said.
Then, while readying for the transplant, doctors were surprised to find that Chris needed heart bypass surgery first.
Ma’ake says he used football terms to help his brother deal with the news.
“We thought we were going to get the first down, but it’s fourth and long now. We’ve got to go deep.”
The heart bypass surgery was successful, and so was the transplant that was done a mere six weeks later.
Dr. Stephen Bartlett, the recipient transplant surgeon, said the donated kidney was “probably the largest normal kidney I’ve ever seen in my life,” and joked that it looked like a small football.
Both men are now doing well, but neither has plans to return to football any time soon.
“We’ve been away from home so long that we just want to be with friends and family,” Chris said.
The two, who are living in Baltimore for now, call Hawaii home, and plan to return there in a few months.
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