Tony Jones was better known as "T-Bone" when he played for the Broncos, the big man up front with a personality as colorful as his suits and a heart as huge as the holes he opened for Terrell Davis.

In his prime, Jones was part of a machine, one that pumped out a 2,000-yard rusher, two Super Bowl titles and tons of memories.

Eight years later, Jones found himself part of a different machine, this one pumping poisons out of his body that otherwise would have killed him.

"At one point, I thought, 'This is life,' " Jones said with resignation.

On March 12, when he celebrated his twins' eighth birthday, Jones also celebrated a new lease on life, one without the leash that is a kidney dialysis machine.

During a four-hour operation at UAB Hospital in Birmingham, Ala., Jones, 40, received a kidney transplant from cousin Adrian Jones.

"We used to tell people we were brothers when we really were just first cousins. Now we're blood brothers," said Adrian Jones, sporting a small scar across his abdomen and two scope holes in his back but otherwise doing fine.

Tony Jones was feeling good, recovering so fast, doctors released him Saturday from the hospital, ahead of schedule. He has to stay in Birmingham the next three weeks to make sure there are no complications.

Then he can travel home to Georgia, where he has lived since retiring in July 2001 after one day of training camp with his original team, the Cleveland Browns.

"No one knows why I walked away from the game, only my family," Jones said. "I had a great situation, but no one knew I was dealing with this."

Time for family

Jones revealed during his farewell news conference that he had the same disease, glomerulosclerosis, that forced Alonzo Mourning of the Miami Heat to undergo a transplant.

Though Jones said his condition wasn't as serious as Mourning's, he worried at the time how the incurable disease would affect him in four or five years. Jones decided he needed to devote more time to his wife, Kamilla, and their three children.

Plus, Jones couldn't fathom trying to play a season without pain medication, something he feared had contributed to the kidney disease and might worsen it.

"I wasn't feeling good, and I said, 'Man, I can't do this. I've got to take care of Tony,' " Jones said.

Instead of playing football, Jones began coaching it, teaching his boys the finer points of the game in a city recreation league.

Jones was taking 10 or 11 medications to keep his kidneys functioning and the resulting high blood pressure in check. Still, the disease progressed.

Kidneys that first tested irregular in 1994 began shutting down last year. Jones' skin turned darker and ashy, and he began losing weight.

"I got real sick, so sick I couldn't get out of bed, couldn't eat, couldn't move," said Jones, who lost about 55 pounds (from 315) because of the illness. "My kidneys weren't pumping the poison out of my body."

Doctors determined Jones had end-stage renal failure, and they put him on dialysis in June.

"Football is a different kind of pain. This was more mental pain," Jones said. "I had to get myself ready to do it every day. Football, you'd fight through it and know you'd feel better in an hour. Some days I'd do dialysis, and when I was finished, I'd be so tired, I'd just sleep the rest of the day. It kept you down."

Feared surgery

Instead of going to a dialysis center, Kamilla learned how to give her husband dialysis at home. It started at three days a week, 3 1/2 hours a day, but within a month, Jones was listening to the machine's distinctive hum in his bedroom six days a week.

"One of the things (the machine) has to clear is waste product of muscles, and he's a big guy, so it took longer," said Dr. Devin Eckhoff, who performed the transplant.

One tube inserted intravenously into Jones' body carried blood out and into the dialysis machine, which cleaned it. Another tube carried blood back into his body.

Though he had to follow a strict diet - no cheese, potatoes, peas, beans, ketchup, bananas or oranges - Jones was determined not to let it completely control his life.

Jones continued to coach, and in February, he took his wife to the Bahamas to celebrate their 15th wedding anniversary.

Besides beach clothing and sunglasses, they also brought along the machine, with the accompanying saline, needles and bandages.

"It was fine, no problems," Jones said. "I couldn't miss out on (the anniversary)."

Dialysis was one thing. The thought of transplant surgery terrified Jones.

Twelve years ago, he nearly died during what was supposed to be a routine elbow operation.

An allergic reaction to anesthesia stopped Jones' heart. Doctors tried shocking it back to life, but that didn't work. Only after giving adrenaline did Jones revive.

"It was awful scary, knowing the heart problems I had the first time, then worrying that my body would reject the new kidney," he said. "God is good. He was on my side."

'It worked out perfect'

Despite all he has been through, Jones considers himself lucky.

"People are down here on dialysis for 13 years," he said, reiterating what his doctor confirmed, that there aren't enough donors.

Jones had several matches.

His wife could be a donor, but Jones refused to turn his family upside down. They had three children, Tony Jr., 11, and the twins, a boy and girl Kamilla delivered shortly after the Broncos won Super Bowl XXXIII but after a difficult pregnancy and nine previous miscarriages.

Tony considered his younger sister, Kathy, as a donor. While she was in Alabama being tested to determine if she was a match, Adrian Jones asked to be tested too.

"I was going to be the one to come down here and stay with him for a month (after the transplant)," said Adrian, who was raised by Tony's parents. "I didn't know I was going to be a match. When they told me two weeks later I was a match, I said, 'I'm doing it.' I had no idea I had the same blood he had. It worked out perfect. It was for a reason."

Three days after the transplant, Adrian Jones recognized the man he always called brother.

"He's back to Tony. He's got a lot of energy," Adrian said. "I asked him today if he wanted to go back and play with the Broncos."

Not quite, Jones said.

The Peachtree Ridge Lions start practice in July, and Jones plans to be on the sideline, coaching the 12-year-olds.

"I'm looking forward to it," he said. "I'll be ready."

The disease

• Glomerulosclerosis damages the kidney's ability to filter waste.

• Cause: Often unknown, but it can be inherited or caused by underlying conditions. Blacks seem to be at higher risk of developing it than other groups.

• Role of painkillers: Transplant surgeon Dr. Devin Eckhoff said there was no evidence pain medicine caused Tony Jones' problems, but he acknowledged a lot of things can influence disease.

• He said it: "I do wonder if taking painkillers for 14 years had a lot to do with it. Other players need to know in the NFL, if you're hurting, don't run to the trainer for pills. It might be best to hurt. I took Percocet, codeine . . . and I never did get off them." - Jones.

• Timeline: Diagnosed in 1994. Jones began taking medicine to keep his kidney-function levels in check and his blood pressure down. Jones said the numbers started going up his final season with the Broncos (2000), but he still felt great and had no symptoms. Though Jones was cleared to play with Cleveland in July 2001, he said his kidney specialist suggested he was taking a chance if he continued to taking pain medications. Jones retired one day into training camp.

• What's ahead: There is about a 10 percent chance Jones' body will reject the new kidney. Anti-rejection drugs are better than years ago. Jones is at risk for developing the same disease in the transplanted kidney.

people on the national waiting list for any organ transplant. on the national kidney waiting list.

Numbers

95,450 people on the national waiting list for any organ transplant.

70,557 people on the national waiting list for a kidney transplant.

24,435 blacks on the national kidney waiting list.

17,087 kidney transplants performed last year in the U.S.

4,012 people removed from the kidney transplant waiting list in 2006 because they died while awaiting a transplant (an average of 11 a day).

• To be a living donor or for more information, contact the National Kidney Foundation at 1-800-622-9010.Source: National Kidney Foundation (Figures As Of Friday).

debruinl@RockyMountainNews.com

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