Two Henderson County sisters are closer than ever following kidney transplant surgery earlier this week in a Tyler hospital.

Paula Sue Swope, 46, of Cross Roads gave one of her kidneys to her sister Karen Yoder, 45, of Athens Tuesday morning at East Texas Medical Center.  Both are doing so well, they expect to be dismissed from the hospital Friday or Saturday.

Ms. Swope, who trains horses with the gentle technique, said, "I'm not giving her life with this kidney, but she has two young children and with this kidney she can be more of a parent, allowing her family to have a regular life."

She added, "Her 9-year-old daughter Megan called me a 'hero' in a paper she wrote for school and that's quite an honor.  In the paper Megan said the 'main reason her Aunt Paula was a hero is that she is giving my mother a kidney."

Ms. Swope explained the 9-year-old described how they were going to cut her aunt open and then cut her mother open and take a kidney to give to her mother.  "That is called an operation," Megan was quoted as saying.  Ms. Yoder also has a 7-year-old son named Will.

A first for the two sisters, who were born in Indiana, is the development of a Web page called "The Swope's and Roger's Polycystic Kidney Disease Page."  It was designed by Ms. Swope to help others gain information about kidney disease and transplant surgery.  Roger is their mother's last name.

Ms. Swope said, "The biggest problem I had was, when was I going to get back to riding horses and it will be about three months, but it is winter now and that helped.  When I was deciding whether to donate a kidney, the support system on the Internet helped me a lot.  It is a good morale support system."

As a result of this information, Ms. Swope said she was helped by those who donated kidneys and recipients on the support group message page for renal failure and kidney transplants.

Ms Yoder's kidney problem is call Polycystic Kidney Disease, or PKD, which is a genetic disease.  Her grandfather died from complication from PKD in the early 1970s and her mother has been on dialysis for 16 years with the disease.  She also has had an aunt and uncle with PKD.

Ms. Yoder, who works for a medical supply firm in Athens, said, "I think it's a  great gift and I don't know how I'm going to repay her."

Ms. Yoder was diagnosed with PKD during a pregnancy in 1991 and cysts have continued to develop until this past July, when she was told she would need a transplant.  Ms. Yoder was placed on a transplant list in July, and blood tests revealed a nearly perfect match with a score of five out of six with her sister.

Ms. Yoder, who was the 22nd relative-related donor during the 11-year program at ETMC, became the 231st person to receive a kidney transplant in Tyler.

Surgeons involved in the sister-to-sister transplant included Drs. Duane Andrews, David Short and Leonard DeCarlo.