In Roanoke, Virginia, a woman named Lynn Lawson is giving her husband Richard a special and life-changing present for Valentine’s Day: her kidney. Now that’s love.
Not too long ago Richard found out he needed a kidney transplant and when his wife found out about the situation she immediately requested to get herself tested to see if she’d be a safe donor.
The couple scheduled the transplant on February 14th, 2020, Valentine’s Day! The date is also known as National Donor Day, which is twice as meaningful in their case. They will be going through the operation at Wake Forest Baptist Health, in North Carolina.
This hospital has a program that has had doctors perform over 4000 abdominal transplants, which includes kidney and pancreas transplants. The program was started back in 1970 (50 years ago) and in 2018 they hit their highest annual transplant record of 243 operations.
Wake Forest Baptist Health is the largest kidney and pancreas transplant center in North Carolina and is known as one of the top twenty transplant centers in the United States.
“Organ donation is truly the gift of life – lives are improved and lives are saved. It’s also a profound experience for those who give,” said Richard’s surgeon, Carl Westcott who is also an M.D. and associate professor of general surgery at Wake Forest Baptist Health.