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The Honolulu Advertiser

Updated at 3:31 p.m., Thursday, May 31, 2007

Ex-UH coach's wife gets kidney from another coach

Advertiser Staff

Laurie Cavanaugh, 48, wife of former University of Hawaii coach and current Oregon State coach Mike Cavanaugh, underwent living-donor kidney transplant surgery Tuesday.

Her donor — OSU offensive coordinator Danny Langsdorf, 34.

Both are doing well after the procedure at Oregon Health & Science University Hospital.

"First of all, the OHSU folks have been fabulous to us," said Mike Cavanaugh in a release. "They have kept our family and the Langsdorfs updated every step of the way, and we could have not hoped for a better experience and professionalism from the staff here."

The transplant was performed to treat Laurie's diseased kidney, an inherited disorder that affects approximately 1 in 1,000 people.

Patients with this disease suffer progressive kidney failure, usually in mid- to late-life. In Laurie's case, her kidneys were enlarged.

"The average kidney is the size of a fist; her kidneys were the size of two heads," said John Barry, M.D., Laurie's transplant surgeon and longtime director of the OHSU Kidney Transplant Program. "The surgery took about six hours, and her new kidney began working within minutes."

Langsdorf was identified as being a donor match through tests with 18 individuals.

"When you work as closely as a coaching staff does, you develop some really deep and solid friendships — I guess you could say this is the ultimate in friendship," Mike Cavanaugh said.

Both Langsdorf and Mike Cavanaugh are in their third years on the coaching staff.

"I want to thank everybody for their thoughts and prayers during this time," Mike Cavanaugh said. "The outreach from people has been tremendous. We are looking forward to returning home."

OHSU is home to one of the world's oldest transplant programs, performing the first one in 1959. There have been nearly 3,800 successful kidney transplants at the Portland facility since and OHSU remains one of the worldwide leaders in the procedure.