The recipient calls it a great Christmas.
Whatever it’s called, on Dec. 18 Kettering City Schools teacher Christine Fine donated one of her kidneys to Kettering schools technology specialist Toby Boedecker.
Boedecker has a stage-five kidney disease.
“I think when it’s all said and done, I’ll be a better person for this,” said Boedecker, of Bellbrook.
Boedecker was diagnosed with stage three kidney disease five years ago. One kidney had failed and one was working at 50 percent, said Boedecker. He was on nightly dialysis at home.
Four possible donors came forward, but after extensive testing, none matched, said the father of three.
Then Fine transferred within Kettering schools to the same building where they met when he set up her computer in August.
It was an ideal match because Fine already felt for two years she had a calling from God to be a living donor.
“When I came here and met Mr. Boedecker, I felt this was the reason I had the calling,” Fine said, who teaches English in an alternative program.
Months of testing determined Fine was an anatomical match, said Fine.
Living donor kidney transplant surgery has a 98 percent success rate, said Dr. Thav Thambi-Pallai, Fine’s surgeon.
Thambi-Pallai said of the 100,000 Americans on the wait list for organ donation, a little more than 80,000 are waiting for kidneys, with about 3,000 in Ohio.
Because Boedecker has a living donor, the organ will live twice as long, as much as 15 years on average, said their doctor.
Boedecker will be in cardiac intensive care two to three days and then in regular post surgery five to seven days.
He, his wife Kim and family celebrated Christmas already. Fine will be home to celebrate Christmas with her husband Michael and their six kids in Bellbrook.
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