Never-ending kidney donation

Health

Never-ending kidney donation

ABC-13
Friday, December 07, 2007 | 7:17 PM

One person comes forward, and sets off a chain of kidney donations.

It began with a Toledo man who stepped forward to donate a kidney, just because he wanted to help someone.

The recipient of that kidney in Columbus has a loved one who's simultaneously donating a kidney to a stranger in Florida.

That recipient's daughter is here in Toledo to donate to a man she just met two days ago. That man is Ronnie Ridenour.

He's had kidney failure for almost 30 years and came here from Knoxville, Tennessee, to get a new kidney from Ethel. It's her mom who's getting a new kidney today in Florida.

While she couldn't help her mom, she could pay it forward to someone else. Ethel Devine said, "Dialysis is horrible. It's not a way to live your life, so to be able to get off dialysis and to move forward on your life is probably the best thing about all of it."

Ronnie found out about the program when a story aired in July on ABC World News with Charles Gibson about the first kidney donation chain. We also covered that story here locally.

Ronnie's cousin Melanie was willing to give him a kidney. "She was not a match so she's in this program with us. Later on, she'll be donating a kidney in another round of matches."

University of Toledo Dr. Michael Rees came up with the idea. He calls it the never-ending altruistic donor. "The way I like to describe it is this is the gift that keeps on giving and it really is."

One person comes forward, and sets off a chain of kidney donations. "We've done eight transplants since March, but in in the next month we're going to do nine, and we're working on 16 more, and it's just mushrooming."

After all the anticipation, there was a setback today for Ronnie. Word came this morning that a final pre-transplant test showed Ethel wouldn't be a good match for him after all. His transplant was called off.

They've found another match for Ethel. That surgery could happen as early as Monday. Ronnie will now go back into the system to find another match.

Dr. Rees says the real challenge is getting funding to pay for the donors to travel all over the country to donate. He's set up a non-profit organization to raise money for the program. Its called the Alliance for Paired Donation.

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvg/story?section=news/health&id=5821227 see video here too