Couple Gives, Then Receives Kidney Donation

Couple Gives, Then Receives Kidney Donation

Posted by: Matt Pearl, Sports Reporter

Created: 2/22/2008 5:37:08 PM

It's a simple motto:

"Every day is a good day."

For Dan and Ellie Tomczak, it describes the thankful, appreciative way in which they live their lives. It describes a history of doing good for others, which in this story ended up turning into an especially good deed done for them.

In the 60's they were signing each other's yearbooks in high school. By the 70's they were married, starting a new life in a new house in Darien Center.

But in 1983, Ellie discovered swelling in her legs; she'd discover it was the start of kidney failure that would take years to play out. By the late 90's, she says she was close to being put on dialysis. But that's when she got the call.

The call that said, "We've found a new kidney for you."

Ellie received a kidney from a Niagara Falls woman who had passed away in the process. At the time, Dan wished he could have been the one to donate for his wife. But even though he wasn't a match for me, he was determined to be a match for somebody.

So he traveled all over to find a hospital that could do a non-direct kidney donation. By the time he found one, in Philadelphia, he became one of just 50 non-direct kidney donations to have taken place nationwide.

Dan and Ellie's story almost turned them into celebrities. They rode on a float in the 2005 Rose Bowl parade; they got profiled in a book by Reg Green about donations.

But the best result of Dan's donation was what it got for Ellie several years later.

On New Year's Day 2007, Ellie was told her donated kidney was failing; she would have to go back on the transplant list. Meanwhile the Tomczaks' daughter, Jenny, had been telling her parents' story to everyone she knew.

One day a co-worker of Jenny's named Pat called to say her husband had suffered a stroke; doctors were checking for brain damage, and he probably wouldn't make it. Would Pat be willing, she was asked, to donate her husband's organs to people in need?

Pat instantly thought of Dan and Ellie. And within days, Ellie had a new kidney.

Today Ellie is reminded often of how blessed she has been. She takes 33 pills every day, and she keeps pictures of her donors in the family's display case.

Dan and Ellie remain thankful, and after all they've been through, they'll be the first to say that motto that still holds true ...

"Every day is a good day."

Click on the video link to the right for Matt Pearl's story.
-mpearl@wgrz.gannett.com

http://www.wgrz.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=55695