Family, community giving gift of play to hospitalized kids
Dereck Potkovic’s Lung Transplant Inspires Family to Share Blessings By Jennifer Pfaff~Editor

   Dereck Potkovic marked a milestone as Mukwonago celebrated Midnight Magic. The boy who doctors said wouldn’t live a year turned 17 on Saturday.

   A double lung transplant in 2000 helped Dereck past some significant breathing problems, but the Mukwonago High School student’s family quickly learned his body was rejecting the donated lungs inside his chest. He is now in renal failure, and his mom, Lynette Schumacher, is hoping against hope she proves a match.

   “I built this place hoping it would be up and running on its own so I could give him a kidney,” Schumacher said, her glance touching each of the themed tanning booths in her salon, Life’s a Beach. She knows that if she gives her kidney to Dereck, she will be unable to work for an extended period of time. That transplant could happen in the next year or two, depending on how rapidly his kidneys fail, she explained.

“His 12-year-old brother offered to donate his kidney, but I don’t think I can live with that,” Schumacher said.

   Waiting for answers and for surgeries has become a way of life for Schumacher. Dereck was born with a hole in his diaphragm that allowed his lower organs to push into his lung cavity and prevented his right lung from developing. While in the hospital those first days of his life, a ventilator was turned on too high for his compromised lungs, and blew a hole in his good lung.

   As the years passed, Dereck grew, but his lungs couldn’t keep up. He breathed using a portable oxygen tank carried in a backpack, and his lung function had dropped to 37 percent by the time he was 9.

   He flew to St. Louis and received his two new lungs, a surgery that for a time brought his lung function to 115 percent. It currently stands at 89 percent.

   Last year at this time, Dereck was back in the hospital, again suffering complications. This time it was his kidneys that were malfunctioning. Spending his 16th birthday in Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin wasn’t ideal, but the family made the most of it - sending the teen some chicken wings delivered by a few Hooters girls.

   Keeping a sick child’s spirits up is essential, Schumacher said. That’s why she was stunned to see the hospital had only one PlayStation unit, rolled between rooms on a cart.

“These kids are in there three days to four months, or longer,” Schumacher said. “If you’re in there, it’s dramatic.”

   The family went home and pulled five television sets out of their home, headed to the store to buy some PlayStation II units, and then returned to Children’s with the donations in tow.

“Those kids need entertainment or they go stir crazy,” Schumacher said.

   This Christmas, the Dereck’s family members are continuing to help Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin upgrade the entertainment options available to the sick children staying there. Schumacher is selling $7 bean bag bears at her salon Life’s a Beach. Proceeds from the sales will be used to purchase TV/DVD/VCR combos for the hospital’s transplant, burn, orthopedic and surgical patients to use.

   “Those are our sickest of the sick children here,” said Tanya Bissen, special events manager with Children’s Hospital and Health System Foundation. “They do not get to go home for the holidays. Because of infection issues, they have to be in their rooms all the time. Electronics like this help alleviate some of the scariness. It’s a comfort.”

   Bears also are available at Citizens Bank of Mukwonago, Chen’s Kitchen, Contours and Mukwonago High School. All locations also will accept cash donations.

“We just want to give something back,” Schumacher said. “We feel we have been incredibly blessed. Everyday is a holiday.”

   Dereck and his family have much to be happy for. Dereck just got his first job - working at Pick ‘n Save as a bagger. He is active in the high school, assisting with the sports he himself cannot play.

   And despite the possibility of death that lingers in the future, the present is full of living life to its maximum potential, Schumacher said.