Andrew Botieri bellows out a reporter’s name at the top of his lungs as the reporter drives up to Botieri’s West Plymouth condo. You would never know by the volume of his voice that Botieri, a wiry 67-year-old, is recovering from a double lung and kidney transplant.
Botieri received his new lungs and kidney on Nov. 19. It was the first time Massachusetts General Hospital had performed a double lung and kidney transplant, he said.
Because he did not know when he would get the call he had been matched with a donor, Botieri had hurried to finish his first novel, The Magical Espresso Machine, a fantasy historical romance connecting Italy with Plymouth, before the transplant.
“An operation like this, you may not make it off the operating table,” he said. “I didn’t want to die on the operating table and not have the book complete.”
Fortunately, the novel’s publication was not posthumous.
The book ties together Botieri’s Italian and Plymouth roots. It opens in a town in the Emilia-Romagna region before World War I. The story later jumps to Plymouth in 1970. When a cousin in Italy sends the young Plymouth hero an espresso machine for her new café, a fantastical connection across time begins.
Since his operation, Botieri has discovered a new connection of his own to Italy.
Along with a new life, the transplant brought Botieri together with his donor Ralph’s older brother, John. Botieri asked their last name be withheld to protect the family’s privacy.
John and Botieri discovered that in addition to being connected by Ralph’s donation of his lungs and kidney, the three men are descendants of Italian immigrants. Botieri’s family comes from Bologna. Like so many immigrants from that part of Italy, his great-grandparents were drawn to North Plymouth by the opportunity to work in the Plymouth Cordage Company. John and Ralph’s family is from Naples. Their sister still lives in Italy.
Transplant recipients do not always get to connect with a donor’s family, Botieri said. When he was released from Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, where he recovered from the transplant, he was given a packet so he could write a letter to the donor family. He was warned he might not ever hear back. But two weeks after he sent his letter, he received a Facebook message from John, followed by an email, texts, and phone calls cementing their new relationship. The two men now plan to meet in person for the first time on June 20.
“We’re going to be connected forever,” Botieri said.
When Ralph died suddenly at 57, he was ten years younger than Botieri, who said his doctors believe because Ralph was so healthy, Botieri received such a great pair of lungs he has not had any setbacks.
Before the operation, nothing was certain. Because of the risk he might not survive, Botieri had taken precautions in addition to finishing his novel. He had made funeral arrangements and written his obituary.
After growing up in Hanson, he spent 17 years in Arizona, Pennsylvania, and California, launching a real-estate web site, among other ventures.
After the company went public in 1999, Botieri contracted scleroderma, an autoimmune condition that shut down his kidneys the next year. It affects about 300,000 people in the United States. There is no cure.
He was on dialysis for six months, during which he decided it was time to come home to Massachusetts. After six months, his kidneys “came back”, he said, and he was able to stop the dialysis.
He later wrote A Celebration of Life, an account of his struggle with his condition.
After moving back to Massachusetts, Botieri became a business coach and motivational speaker.
He also developed a night gig.
As he spoke to the Independent, Botieri’s made-to-order Guild D-55 steel guitar rested on a stand in his living room.
Until he moved back home, he said, he had been a “closet” guitar player until Mike Landers, the founder of Plymouth’s Project Arts, encouraged him to perform at an open mike night at Bert’s, the now vanished bar and restaurant by Plymouth Beach. Paid gigs would follow at the Grist Mill, Mamma Mia’s, the Plymouth Yacht Club, Martini’s, and venues on the Cape.
He had to stop performing in 2019 after being diagnosed with interstitial lung disease. By 2020, he was on supplemental oxygen. In 2021, his pulmonologist suggested a lung transplant, warning that without it, his life expectancy was about five years. He eventually agreed to the operation, and after a year’s evaluation, was cleared for a double lung and kidney transplant on Oct. 2.
His novel was published on Oct. 25, less than a month before his successful operation.
He has spent the last few months recovering at home.
On June 23, Botieri will discuss the book at Book Love, in Pinehills.
With his healthy kidney and lungs, he plans to live a full life again.
“I thank Ralph every morning I wake up,” he said.
Fred Thys can be reached at fred@plymouthindependent.org