Manitoba man says long-lost childhood friend's kidney donation saved him years of dialysis
Daryl Schroeder says he didn't let himself celebrate the fact that he was receiving a donated kidney until he was being anaesthetized on an operating table just over three weeks ago.
"Then I knew I was getting a kidney, and then I was going, 'Yay,'" Schroeder told CBC News on Friday.
Schroeder, who was diagnosed with polycystic kidney failure about 3½ years ago, says his sisters and niece all tried to donate but weren't able to, as organ donors go through a rigourous screening process.
He got the kidney from an old friend, Tim Froese. The 66-year-olds met in Grade 6 in the Manitoba town of Altona, but lost touch after graduating from high school nearly 50 years ago. They reconnected on Facebook after Schroeder's diagnosis.
"After our initial getting together, I just went, 'Well, let's at least find out if I'm a match,'" Froese said. "Sure enough, I was, and I'm like, 'Okay, well, what next?'"
All the testing took about a year and a half, and the two learned they both had type O blood.
Froese says the longer the testing took, the more he felt it was his destiny to give an old friend his kidney.
"Everything was just aligning as the process went along, and I think I just felt like this was the time for me to do something like this," he said.
"You can't live a good life unless you take risks every day, right?"
Schroeder said he feels like he has a new lease on life, and that Froese saved him from spending the rest of his life on dialysis.
"Six hours after surgery, I came to and I knew that the kidney was working," Schroeder said. "I felt 150 per cent better than I did for three years, and I still feel that way today."
'Extreme financial burden'
The friends hope people learn from their story and learn more about kidney donation.
Ashley Tobin, community manager of the Manitoba Kidney Foundation, says she shares that hope.
"There is such a need for kidneys here in Manitoba," Tobin told CBC News on Friday. "Living with kidney disease comes with an extreme financial burden, so the longer you're on dialysis, the longer your financial burden is."
Donating can be safer than people often think, she said.
"A lot of people can be born with one kidney and not even know [they] were born with one kidney," Tobin said. "So you can live a fully functioning life with one kidney. You'll lose, on average, about 80 per cent of your kidney function before you know something is going on."
With dialysis in the rearview mirror, Froese and Schroeder plan to go on a road trip in the future — something Schroeder couldn't do while receiving dialysis.
"Getting him out of my face is going to be the problem now," Froese joked.
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