It was Valentine's Day 2000. Teacher Anne Bush, now retired, knew what she would give her husband. Chocolate? No. A fancy dinner? No.

Her gift was a kidney. The gift of love.

"I was frustrated," the Queens teacher said. "I wanted to do something. I'm a concrete person. That's why I teach kindergarten."

The next day, doctors took out one of her kidneys in a six-hour operation. They put it inside her husband, whose kidneys did not work due to polycystic kidney disease.

Bush's recovery took her away from the children in her kindergarten program for gifted and talented at PS 153 in Queens for nine weeks. The United Federation of Teachers member didn't think it would take that long to heal.

Her colleagues were fabulous, taking up a collection to get her massages. Parents sent tasty food and thoughtful cards, cheering her.

"When your body doesn't want to work sometimes, it's extremely frustrating," she said. "My mind was ready but my body wasn't cooperating. It gave me insight into what he (Tom) goes through."

Back in school, she used her experience as a "teachable moment" for her small students.

She and a colleague donned "anatomy aprons" with Velcro body parts, taking a kidney off one apron and putting it on the other to illustrate the concept.

Her efforts gave her husband 41¼2 years of a normal life.

"All of a sudden he was reborn," she said.

Then her kidney failed inside him. Now Tom, a retired IBM technician, is back on dialysis. After 20 years of teaching, Anne Bush has retired to care for him. Each morning the dialysis machine has to be set up, hoses replaced and medicine given.

"It's time-consuming," Bush said. "I'd have to be an OK teacher, not an excellent teacher, if I still did this." So she retired.

Beginnings

She began her education to become a teacher when their children, Eric and Paul, were toddlers. She went part-time at City University of New York Queens College. Her first job was teaching at PS 88, then 15 years at PS 153.

She remains a classroom regular. The couple give presentations about organ donation at the request of high school teachers, mostly in health classes in Nassau and Suffolk counties. They are part of the Long Island chapter of Transplant Recipients International Organization, www.litrio.org.

Tom and Anne describe the procedures of transplants from live patients and cadavers and how to sign up to be a donor.

"On the average, there's one student in every class that has a connection in some way," said Tom. "Maybe a family member was a donor or recipient." One student's father was a transplant doctor at a New York City hospital.

About 95,000 people are on a national list for organ transplants, and about 17 people die every day while waiting for an organ, he said.

Tom Bush is on peritoneal dialysis. He has a catheter in his abdomen. He puts two liters of fluid into his body that goes into his peritoneal cavity and absorbs toxins, then drains two liters out. The fluids have to be warmed so the body doesn't go into shock.

A machine performs that cycle seven times a day.

- Liza Frenette