Facebook Connection Credited With Saving Woman's Life

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Facebook Connection Credited With Saving Woman's Life
Tuesday,  July 26, 2011 5:34 PM
WBNS-10TV

GALLOWAY, Ohio — Jessica Mott, a working single mother of two, recently connected with a childhood friend, Lindsay Dropsey, on Facebook.
The pair had a fallout when they were in eighth grade, when they drove Dropsey's car around the block and got in trouble.

"After that, we kind of parted ways because I was mortified and I was grounded for the entire summer," Dropsey said.

Dropsey went on to Ohio State University.  Mott married, moved to Texas and had two children before moving back to central Ohio.

The only connection that Dropsey and Mott had was that they followed each other on Facebook, 10TV's Andrea Cambern reported.

After Mott gave birth to her son, she started experiencing kidney problems.

"Then, (doctors) told me that I'd have to go on dialysis," Mott said.

The diagnosis terrified Mott since kidney disease runs in her family.  Her grandfather died from it at 32 years old.  Her father and uncle were saved unexpectedly by kidney transplants, when a drunken driver killed their sister-in-law.  Mott knew that the odds were against her.

"I put on Facebook that I needed a kidney," Mott said.

"She had written that she was type O blood and I knew that I was type O blood," Dropsey said.

Dropsey, who had not talked to Mott for almost a decade, volunteered to be tested.  She was a match.

"We were both in shock when they said we were a match because no one in her family really matched her," Dropsey said.  "It's one thing to donate blood, but you always kind of want to do a little something more."

In June at the Cleveland Clinic, two teams performed the kidney transplant, Cambern reported.

Each year in the U.S., more than 89,000 people die waiting for a kidney.  Mott was one of the lucky ones, part of a growing trend called "altruistic donations."

"Altruistic donation is becoming increasingly more common, but the largest segment of living donation that's increasing are the living, unrelated donors," said Dr. David Goldfarb, the Cleveland Clinic's kidney transplant director.

Goldfarb has performed more than 800 transplants.  He said that as long as Mott takes drugs to prevent organ rejection, her disease probably won't come back.

"The prognosis is excellent for her," Goldfarb said.

Mott, who is back home with her children, said that she is awed by the selflessness of an old friend who gave her a new chance at a long life.

"I could tell her thank you a million times and it wouldn't be enough," Mott said.

While people might wait for years on a list for a donated kidney from a stranger, others receive the organs much quicker through a directed donation, when one person agrees to give another the organ.

Stay with 10TV News and 10TV.com for additional information.

More Information:

Lifeline of Ohio

http://www.10tv.com/live/content/health/stories/2011/07/26/story-columbus-kidney-transplant-from-facebook.html?sid=102