Woman Donates Kidney to Husband Just Before Valentine's Day
A woman in Roanoke, Virginia, recently gave her beloved husband a Valentine’s Day gift that saved his life.
Richard Lawson has suffered from kidney disease for the past 20 years, and was placed on the donor waiting list last fall after his health began to spiral, according to Fox 8.
However, when his wife of 38 years heard the news, she immediately got tested to determine if she could be his donor.
“He was not crazy about me doing it but I was like if I’m going to ask other people to do it, I’m going to at least volunteer first,” Lynn said.
To everyone’s surprise, they were a match.
“There just wasn’t any question. I wanted to keep him around a little bit longer,” she commented.
February 4, the Lawsons underwent the transplant surgery at Wake Forest Baptist Health in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
When they woke up after the procedure, the couple kept asking everyone if the other was okay.
“‘Is my wife OK?’ Mr. Lawson said,” transplant surgeon Alan Farney recalled.
The surgeon also praised Lynn for her act of love and said it saved a life by having one less person on the transplant list.
“Her willingness to give, his willingness to receive, allowed someone else to receive a kidney,” he noted.
Following the successful surgery, Richard joked that it would be hard to top his wife’s Valentine’s Day gift for him this year.
“Oh my gosh, yes and it was a great trade-off. I got a kidney; she got edible arrangements,” he said, adding, “What do you tell someone giving you life? You know, I want to make the best of it.”
Now, Lynn hopes others will follow in her footsteps so maybe they too can save someone’s life.
“I would highly recommend other people checking to see if they can be donors. There are a lot of people on this list that need kidneys that will die before they get them,” she commented.
February 14th is not only Valentine’s Day, but is also known as National Donor Day, according to ABC 13.