72-year-old Donald Thomas is a longtime customer of a Hooters in Roswell, Georgia. But these days, he doesn’t come by for the food and drink. No, he shows up because of the kindness shown by a previously unknown waitress.
He was losing both of his kidneys to cancer and was in dire need of a transplant to save his life. 22-year-old Mariana Villareal answered what she felt to be a calling. Though she hardly knew Thomas, she gave him one of her kidneys. She was inspired to do so by the recent passing of her grandmother due to kidney failure.
“I wasn’t able to do anything for my grandma,” Villareal told. “If he can live for two more years, happy as he’s ever been, that’s completely fine with me.”
“I did my part. Now it’s God’s part to keep him alive.”
Dr. Harrison Pollinger of the Piedmont Transplant Institute has said that both Thomas and Villareal are likely to be able to live healthy lives after the surgery. “All you really need is one kidney to have what we consider normal kidney function.”
After using a minimally invasive robotic approach to the surgeries, both parties involved should be able to return home by Tuesday – which means they needed only four days to recover.
See a newscast following this heroic venture below: