Kidneys Swaping Bonds Two Couples for Life

Yesterday we told you about an amazing cab driver who is willingly donating a kidney for a woman he drives to dialysis. Today, we have another touching kidney transplant story, one that is changing four lives for the better.

Last week, doctors at UC San Diego Medical Center at Hillcrest performed the first ever double transplant procedure involving two patients who received a kidney from one another’s spouses. Today, recipients Patti Ford and Paul Bryan say they are feeling better than ever thanks to the kidneys they received from Robyn Bryan and Patrick Ford.

"Robyn gave me a better quality of life," Patti said, through tears at a press conference earlier this week, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. Paul said he felt better almost immediately following the operation.

The double transplant is the first in what experts hope will be many similar transplants, which could help patients get the life-saving organs they need more quickly. Nearly 86,000 people await a kidney in the US, and can sometimes be on a waiting list for years. The United Network for Organ Sharing, which operates the nation's transplant waiting lists, is launching a pilot program for a coast-to-coast registry of potential kidney donation pairs, with the Fords and Bryans serving as their first couple-to-couple success story.

The group connected after Patti and Patrick Ford attended a kidney donation class at Hillcrest in April. They expressed interest in a paired donation to UCSD’s transplant coordinator and as luck – or fate – would have it, she received paperwork on Robyn and Paul the very next day, and learned the spouses would be a perfect match for each other. The surgeries happened simultaneously last Wednesday.

What makes this story even sweeter is that the two couples seem to have a connection beyond the obvious donation. They live near one another, both love golf and are around the same age.

As Patti told the press, "I said to my husband, 'I feel like I know them from somewhere.'"

Or perhaps she knows they were just meant to be a part of their lives forever.

Photo courtesy of crisderaud via stock.xchang