What was a chance meeting in a bathroom at work became a lifesaving kidney transplant chain for these two co-workers at a hospital in Atlanta.
Susan Ellis and Tia Wimbush have been colleagues for more than a decade at the Children’s Healthcare and they knew other’s husbands were in need of a kidney transplant, but it wasn’t until they saw each other in the bathroom that they had the lifesaving conversation.
They Realized their Blood Types Were a Match
During the bathroom conversation, the first one in several months because of the pandemic, they realized that Wimbush’s blood type was a match for Ellis’s husband, Lance whereas Ellis’s blood type matched with that of Wimbush’s husband Rodney.
Wimbush said how she immediately thought that they can help each other out and put an end of the suffering of two families.
She later called Rodney and they were committed to inform him. Rodney who’s 45 is a high school teacher who got a kidney failure diagnosis in 2019. It happened suddenly after he was taken to the hospital because of hypertension.
The father of two began dialysis right after the diagnosis and they also put him on the transplant waiting list in the spring of 2020; however, the process was additionally slowed due to the pandemic.
Lance, Ellis’s husband got a kidney from his mom a couple of years back, but it went into renal failure in 2019 because the body rejected the organ.
He had to undergo dialysis too, treatment that would stretch for as long as five or six hours on the daily. Lance, a stepdad to his wife’s two daughters, says that it impedes the quality of life and it’s very hard.
They Had to Postpone the Surgeries Several Times
After finding out that they could possibly save each other’s husbands, Susan and Tia did the needed tests and were given the green light as donors for Rodney and Lance.
However, the transplants were postponed after Lance had to go into the hospital because of complications from the acute kidney failure.
After the first postponing in December, the January schedule was also delayed because Susan tested positive for COVID a day before the procedure. These were devastating news and the transplant was moved to March 19.
That day came and it all went successfully. They even walked through the hospital doors together. They recovered on the same floors in the hospitals and had rooms next to each other.
Friends for Life
She felt joyous and hopeful knowing her kidney will help a family enjoy a better quality of life. For Rodney, the Ellises are family now and he worries more about Lance than he does for himself.
Despite being challenging, Tia explains, she would do it all over again.
He says he’ll be forever grateful to Susan for what she did.
Tia and Susan call each other ‘kidney sisters’ and they claim their unique bond will last until the end of their lives.
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