Woman donates kidney to stranger, end up a perfect match
Posted: Feb 03, 2012 12:33 AM PST
By Cami Mountain, Anchor, Multimedia Journalist - bio | email
ADAMS COUNTY (WAOW) -- It's been said, sometimes things don't go your way for a reason. This story proves that.
Two central Wisconsin women, who'd never met ended up being a perfect match for a kidney donation. But it's how they met that's the real story.
Jill Dillon and Sara Solinsky met by a lifesaving chance. Sara, in desperate need of a new kidney. Jill, with a desperate desire to give.
Just a few months before the pair met Jill was set to donate a kidney to a family friend named Lonnie . Unfortunately, there was a barrier in the donation. Lonnie was able to find another donor and had a successful surgery.
Jill says, "We ended up being told by one hospital that we could to ahead and do it, we were a match but two weeks before surgery they canceled for other health reasons that he had. We ended up transferring to UW Hospital who told us, according to their records, we were not a match.
Let down, Jill was back to square one. That's when she told a friend, if you know someone who needs a kidney, I'll give them mine. That friend did.
She just got a big smile on her face and I said, "What? Do you think I'm crazy?" And she said, "No, I don't think you're crazy but I think I know of someone who may need your kidney."
That someone was Sara.
In her early twenties Sara was diagnosed with Blastomycosis and learned she was born with only one kidney and it was failing.
Sara needed dialysis and was constantly tired and nauseous, making it difficult to care for her young daughter, Ashlyn. And when she heard about Jill, she was cautious.
"Right away I thought, oh my God. This is it. But then in the back of my mind I thought, don't get your hopes up. This might not work.
But it did. Jill and Sara were a perfect match and back in July they went through with the surgery.
Sara says, "She's not only helped me, she's helped my family, Ashlyn. Without her, I would have been on dialysis."
Seven months later, they're doing great and have created a new, extended family.
Jill adds, "I now have Sara who's like another sister to me and it's been wonderful."
On Saturday, February 4, at the Central Wisconsin Fairgrounds Junior Expo building, a fundraising benefit will be held by Sara and Jill to defray the costs of the kidney operations. It runs from 12-10 PM.
Also, donations can be written out to Sara Solinsky Benefit, and mailed to or dropped off at Pioneer Bank in Auburndale, Wisconsin.
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