After having renal failure caused by diabetes, Robb Wilson (here with his wife, Lora, at their Churchill home), received a kidney and pancreas transplant in 1999 from a donor who had died. His wife couldn't donate one of her kidneys to her husband, but she later gave one in an altruistic donation to a stranger.
When Lora Wilson of Churchill decided to donate one of her kidneys last year to anyone who needed it, she got an unexpected reaction.
While most people supported her decision to become a living kidney donor, some were completely thrown by her wish to become an "altruistic" donor, giving her precious organ to someone she didn't know.
"When I started telling people," Ms. Wilson said, "some of them really couldn't get the altruistic part. Sometimes I would tell somebody, and they would actually burst into gushing tears!"
As it turned out, the patient who got Lora Wilson's kidney didn't stay a stranger for long. Dolores Iannacone met Ms. Wilson after the surgery, when they were still in the hospital at UPMC Montefiore, and they now talk every week.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/health/paired-donations-give-organ-transplants-a-brighter-future-484318/
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