He was diagnosed with FSGS or focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, a condition that scars the part of the kidney that filters out toxins and blood. It was a disease he was familiar with as his father also had FSGS.
“Seeing what dad was going through, I knew I would have to go through it at a young age,” says Staten.
The disease is difficult as it not only puts a patient in kidney failure, the toxins that aren’t filtered by kidneys can make patients ill.
“The toxins would make me throw all my food up,” says Staten. “I would eat only once a day and if I ate, I would throw it up most of the time.
He started on kidney dialysis in 2010 and in 2012 met Heather Lawyer, outreach coordinator at SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital. She was doing an educational talk at Korbin’s transplant center on the benefits of kidney transplant.
“For a young person facing a lifetime of kidney disease, the individual has to weigh all treatment options,” says Lawyer. “For someone like Korbin, a young man with a family, the best option for him is going to be off dialysis as soon as possible.”
Staten got the call in October 2012 after six months on the waiting list, that a kidney was ready for him at Saint Louis University Hospital with surgeon Betsy Tuttle-Newhall, MD.
“It didn’t hit until I was here getting prepped for surgery,” he says. “It was like, I’m getting a kidney.”
Over the next few days, he felt an immediate difference.
“I felt better than I had in years right away,” says Staten. “I can eat what I want again and feel totally different.”
A good thing as Korbin is the father of two small children, 4-year-old Kamryn and 11-month old Khloey.
“I didn’t get to live a real childhood and now I can do things with them I couldn’t do before.”
