IgA nephropathy, a kidney condition characterized by an accumulation of IgA, has been diagnosed in John. Kidney failure is a possibility. Delayne, 25, a nurse and John’s daughter who lives in Kirkwood, Missouri (a St. Louis suburb), said he had kidney dialysis up to five hours a day, four days a week for nearly a year. John was apprehensive about having Delayne be his kidney donor because he had lost his son to cancer 16 years before, and Delayne was his only sibling.
‘I thought, I lost my boy, and if anything happened to Delayne, I don’t know what I would do,’ he told ABC News, adding that it was a major concern. The 25-year-old girl was determined to donate a kidney to her father without his permission because she knew it would be years before he received a new one . “He’s hooked up to a machine,” she claimed, even though he “wants to do all this stuff.” “He enjoys walking and running with my dog,” she continued.
‘I don’t think anyone should have to live like that.’ ‘I was like, “I’m going to do it,” Delayne added. I don’t care how angry he is with me. I don’t care if he kicks me out, hates me, or doesn’t say anything to me for the rest of my life. ‘At the very least, he’ll be living a normal life and not being hooked up to a machine.’ As a result, she underwent the months-long clearance procedure to become a kidney donor for her father while still living at home with her parents,
which included undergoing several medical tests and communicating on the phone with social workers and medical professionals. In August, John received the good news that his family had been waiting for: he had a donor. ‘They called me at work and said, ‘We’ve got an anonymous donor,’ and I nearly dropped the phone, thinking, ‘Are you kidding me?’ He stated to ABC News.
‘People can be on the [kidney waiting] list for five, six, seven, or eight years and go through dialysis for that long,’ she says. Delayne’s privacy was respected by Washington University and the Barnes-Jewish Transplant Center in St. Louis, where John had his surgery. The team had to do a lot of “behind the scenes” work to keep the father and daughter apart in pre-op and post-op areas until Delayne was ready to break the news to John, according to John’s surgeon, Jason Wellen, who is also the center’s director of kidney and pancreas transplant surgery.
John was overcome with emotion when she did. John knew something was wrong after Delayne’s father had surgery because he had filmed the heartbreaking moment she entered the hospital room and saw him hooked up to an IV drip. ‘Oh my goodness. ‘Are you kidding me?’ he asks in the video, which has been viewed over four million times on TikTok. After a brief moment of shock, John turns to face his wife and begins to cry quietly.
Delayne assures him that everything will be fine. He gathers his thoughts and says, ‘I knew you were up to something.’ ‘I’m always up to something,’ she responds cheekily. ‘If 6,000 people Venmoed me $1, I could cover the cost of my father’s kidney transplant,’ Delayne said in the captions above the video. Initially “upset,” John later expressed gratitude for his daughter’s selfless act and relief at no longer being “hooked up to the machine.” ‘I can’t stop crying,’ he went on. There are currently over 104,000 people on the organ transplant waiting list, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.