I Hate Dialysis Message Board
Dialysis Discussion => Dialysis: News Articles => Topic started by: okarol on October 24, 2009, 05:59:04 PM
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chicagotribune.com
Landlord donates kidney to her tenant
Barbara Thomas donates a kidney to tenant James Love. 'God showed me I was the one who is supposed to give you this kidney,' she told him.
By Amanda Marrazzo
Special to the Tribune
October 24, 2009
The subject of James Love's precarious health came up one day last winter when his landlord was chatting with Love's wife about a leaky faucet.
Barbara Thomas, who rents a home to the couple and their six children in Sleepy Hollow, asked Shira Love what her husband needed to avoid kidney dialysis. Born with sickle cell anemia, he had endured years of excruciating pain and renal failure.
Shira Love told Thomas that he desperately needed a kidney but that it was hard to find a match because of his O-positive blood type.
"The second Shira said James needed a kidney, I knew," said Thomas, who is O-negative, a compatible blood type. "It was like I heard a voice saying in my head, 'It is you.' I didn't really think about it. I just did it."
Thomas donated a kidney Thursday to Love at Loyola Medical Center in Maywood. Both were expected to be discharged Saturday.
"She said, 'God showed me I was the one who is supposed to give you this kidney,' " James Love said Friday from his recovery room bed.
Thomas said she was sleepy but doing "just fine."
A legal secretary who lives in Brookfield, she said the hardest part was getting Love to hand over the doctor information to get started.
"He didn't really believe me, I think," she said.
Another person had offered him a kidney but then was unable go through with it. So Love, who has been on disability since 2005, said he was skeptical of Thomas' offer. But as she started going to all of her doctor's appointments and the two began communicating more often, he began to believe the transplant was going to happen.
Thomas, a mother of three, took off days from work for the battery of X-rays, blood tests and other procedures to make sure she could tolerate the six-hour surgery. She is on unpaid leave for the next six weeks.
Dr. David Holt, director of renal transplantation at Loyola and Love's surgeon, said that his patient was doing well after the long surgery.
If Thomas had not offered Love her kidney, it could have taken nearly four years to find a compatible organ, a wait that could have impaired the outcome, he said.
"The longer a patient is on dialysis, the outcome of a transplant tends to be worse," Holt said. "Outside of having the kidney of an identical twin, this is a pretty much an optimal situation."
Love, a minister with Higher Call International Ministries in Elgin, called Thomas "an amazing woman of God."
An African-American, he said that Thomas, who is white, "saw past the boundaries of color and skin. She totally saw through that and wanted to give me her kidney."
Thomas said her supportive friends and family will help her recover and assist with her bills. But she realized that not all donors have similar resources to help with day-to-day expenses.
Both families said they will be united forever.
"I really believed God was guiding her heart and establishing an everlasting bond between us," Love said. "This woman is literally my sister now."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-landlord-giftoct24,0,6115629.story