When he woke up from the operation, he wanted to see his little sister. And he was going to find her with or without their help.

“Is she OK?” Walter demanded to know.

“She is fine. You can see her later,” the doctors told him.

Walter, then 19, was convinced they were lying, convinced that Anita had rejected his kidney.

Holding a pillow tight to his stomach, he got up, grabbed onto the stand holding his intravenous bag and started walking toward the door.

The nurses and doctors didn’t try to stop him. Instead, they pointed to his sister’s room, then followed close behind as he shuffled down the hallway in his hospital gown.

Anita, 17, was smiling when Walter finally got to her door. She, too, was hooked up to tubes, and her skin was a brownish yellow.

“Hi!” Humprey said. “Gee, you look beautiful.”

That was June 19, 1979, a time when kidney transplants were rare and those who received them usually died or needed another one within years.

Doctors told Anita and Walter’s mother, Millie, that they couldn’t predict how long it would be before Walter’s kidney would give out and Anita would need another transplant.

But they probably wouldn’t have guessed that after nearly two and a half decades, she’d still be going strong.

As the 25th anniversary of the operation approaches, Anita Gadbois, a 43-year-old customer service representative who lives in Oxford, hasn’t come close to being put on any transplant list.

“I feel great,” she said.

And Walter, who is 45 and lives in Auburn, hasn’t experienced any problems with his remaining kidney.

To celebrate, their mother, Millie Leavitt, is throwing them an anniversary party on June 19 at the Village Inn.

Almost like we knew’

Anita and Walter have three other siblings. They are all close, said their mother.

But Anita and Walter always seemed to have a special connection, even before the transplant.

Leavitt remembers Walter coming home from school and running inside to pick up Anita and swing her around. Walter remembers a time when Anita was so excited to see him that she jumped off the porch into his arms, and they both fell to the ground.

“We were always really, really close,” Anita said. “It was almost like we knew.”

Even though Anita never complained about always being nauseous, dizzy and weak, Walter worried about her.

Her health problems started when she was 2.

That was when her mother took her to the doctor for what she assumed was the flu. A urine test indicated that one of her kidneys was shutting down, and she needed surgery immediately.

Dialysis

With one working kidney, a strict no-salt diet and a long list of medications, Anita made it to her last year of high school before needing dialysis.

Three times a week, her mother drove her to Portland for the four-hour treatments. At the same time, doctors were testing each of her four siblings for matching blood and tissue types.

Walter was stationed at an Air Force base in Columbus, Ohio, at the time, and the military hospital agreed to do all of the testing.

When Walter found out he was a perfect match, his first question was, “How soon can I go?” He later sent a letter to Anita’s doctor to let him know, “I’ll give her my kidney, if she promises to give it a beer once a week.”

50 percent chance

At Anita’s insistence, doctors agreed to wait until after she graduated from high school to do the operation. Her graduation was on Friday.

She went into the hospital Saturday. Walter was admitted Monday. And the transplant was performed Tuesday.

Right before doctors put Walter under, they told him for the first time that there was only a 50 percent chance that it would be a success.

Groggy from the anesthesia, Walter was convinced by the look on the doctors’ faces that his sister had died during the operation.

It wasn’t until he saw her – and she smiled at him like she did that day when she jumped off the porch – that he knew they would both be fine.

“Are you ready to go back to bed now?” a doctor asked Walter as he stood in the doorway to his sister’s hospital room.

“Yes,” Walter replied. “Now, I’m ready.”

[email protected]