Were it not for the hand controls inside his truck and the metal ring on the steering wheel that he grabs with his prosthesis, Jeff Kepner would look like any other parent picking up a child from John S. Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School.
Mr. Kepner, who lost his hands and feet after an infection cut off the blood flow to his limbs, is in line to become the first double hand transplant recipient in the United States. The family has undergone a series of screenings and is awaiting word on a suitable donor. But on this afternoon, Mr. Kepner's conversation with 13-year-old Jordan was like any other father-teenage daughter exchange.
"How was school?" he asked as Jordan slumped into the passenger seat.
"It was fine."
"Homework?"
"Nope. I have to do my --"
"Science?
"Drama."
"By the way, you're going tonight," Mr. Kepner said.
"There's no reason for me to go," Jordan protested.
"Your mom wants a picture," he said.
The subject of photos is apparently a sore point for the seventh-grader, who is determined not to have her image appear in any newspaper accessible to the general public. That gives her dad an opening to tease her.
"You want to be an actress, don't you?" he said. "And you don't want to be in the paper? Isn't that odd? How are you going to be discovered?"
"Not by the newspaper," Jordan said.
"Maybe Joe Jonas will read it," Mr. Kepner teased her, referring to one of the members of a popular boy band, "and say, 'Boy, this girl is cute. I've got to meet her.' What do you think?"
"Why would Joe Jonas be in Georgia?" she countered with devastating logic.
Childhood memories
Jordan was only 3 years old when her father got sick, so she doesn't remember much from that time.
"I know I was at a birthday party when you started to turn gray," Jordan said, as they sat in the living room. "We were at Emily's birthday party."
"That was the Saturday I went to the hospital," Mr. Kepner said.
That grayness was a sign of a devastating illness. It would be three weeks before he was able to fight it off and then have his hands and feet amputated. Jordan said she knew something was wrong.
"Child instincts," she said. "Every time your daddy is gone for a long time, you know something is wrong. I was a daddy's girl, I think."
"You still are," Mr. Kepner said.
But when Jordan was brought to the hospital, she wouldn't go in to see him. Mr. Kepner came home later in a hospital bed that was parked in the living room.
"She was a little leery," he said. "Once she did come up to me, about a day later, she kind of patted (the stumps). She called them paws."
He recalls taking her to a playground off Lumpkin Road, where all the children would crowd around him and Jordan would push them aside.
"And she'd say, 'That's my dad,' " Mr. Kepner said proudly.
But sometimes kids weren't so nice.
"I did get in fights with people because of you," she said, particularly with kids at Goshen Elementary who called him "robot."
But for the most part now, kids accept her dad for who he is, she said.
"I'm just like, 'My dad doesn't have arms and legs. He has prosthetics.' They're like, 'OK,' " Jordan said.
She can see both good and bad about the transplant.
The bad? "If it is during school, I won't see them for four months" while they rehab in Pittsburgh, Jordan said.
But it is mostly good.
"He would probably be able to take me to more stuff," Jordan said. "He could probably bowl with me. He could probably swim with me now. He could probably teach me ... sports."
"Play video games," he said. "I miss doing that."
"I can't wait to kick your butt, Dad," Jordan teased.
Looking ahead
Aside from missing daughter time, the transplant presents some significant challenges for the family. Although the clinical trial, which includes a new immunosuppression protocol for hand transplant patients, will cover the cost of the operation, hospital stay and drugs, it won't pay for their other costs.
Valarie Kepner, Jeff's wife, will have to take leave from her job as supervisor of education with the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Edgefield County and pay for lodging in Pittsburgh for four months.
After a month in the hospital, Mr. Kepner will face three more months of intensive therapy to gain touch and control of the new hands.
The Kepners' church, Burns Memorial United Methodist, has held fundraisers and established a fund to help out. But the costs still will likely be considerable, the Kepners acknowledge.
The operation is barely mentioned as the family gathers at Villa Europa for dinner with Mrs. Kepner's parents, James and Arlene Brittain, of Montgomery, Pa. The restaurant is a favorite haunt, and waitress Karin Kraft knows the Kepners well. It didn't take long to get used to Mr. Kepner, the longtime waitress said.
"Here it is more like a family," Mrs. Kraft said. "Everybody knows him."
There is no special treatment because, she said, he doesn't need it.
"He's so independent. He just wants to do his own thing," Mrs. Kraft said.
Mrs. Kepner slides down the booth to corral Jordan and tries to turn her shoulders to get her to turn around and face the camera. Jordan is fighting her as if she is being asked to kiss a yak.
In the end, she is subdued and the family gathers around Mr. Kepner, who is sitting in a chair.
The family pulls Mrs. Kraft in for a photo with him.
"You want me to sit in your lap," she teases.
"All right," he shoots back.
They settle for a portrait side by side, her arm across his shoulders.
Many times, there is an awkward moment when people meet Mr. Kepner or when they are leaving.
A lot of people, unsure what to do, give him a hug. But often, he offers his prosthesis with a big grin.
Someday soon, if he is lucky, there will be a hand there. But the smile will be the same. And everything else that is important about him won't change.
Reach Tom Corwin at (706) 823-3213 or tom.corwin@augustachronicle.com.
KEPNER SERIES
Amputee is in line for double transplant
Surgeons' new strategy aims to prevent rejection
WANT TO HELP?
The Kepners' church, Burns Memorial United Methodist, has set up the Jeff Kepner Transplant Fund. Donations may be sent to:
Burns Memorial United Methodist Church
2372 Lumpkin Road
Augusta, GA 30906
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My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.