After the kidney he got from his mother stopped working after 20 years, Dr. Brian Dunn was in great need of another transplant. Fortunately, a fellow colleague donated one of her own.
With the advancement of medicine, transplants have been made possible to save human lives. If willing people are considerate enough and donate parts of their own bodies to save another’s life, surgeons don’t fall shorter either. It happened in California when a doctor – and a father of a 6-year-old daughter – was in great need of a kidney transplant. Dr. Brian Dunn’s own kidneys suffered extensive damage from chemo sessions he had undergone as a teenager after a tumor was discovered in his stomach. At the time, his mother donated to save his life. Unfortunately, kidneys acquired by transplant do not last forever. So, years after his first surgery, he needed to go under the knife once again.
Dr. Colleen Coleman who working at the same health facility decided to put her life on the line in order to give Dr. Dunn a chance to a new life. Two other matches have been previously found, but one of the donors changed his mind before the procedure and the second one was a Lou Gehrig’s patient.
“I thought it’s not going to happen.”, told Dr. Brian Dunn reporters.
After the kidney he received from his mother at 25 stopped working, Dr. Dunn could hardly keep pace with his daughter in late 2015. In April, last year, he started dialysis and had to go through the process of purifying his blood four times a day. The procedure was both mind-wrecking and time-consuming.
Furthermore, Dr. Coleman’s intervention almost never took place because of an error that stated she was not a match for the patient. However, the testing company called back in the summer of 2016 and announced their mistake, saying Dr. Coleman is, in fact, a perfect match. Even so, the donor started to have doubts but soon renounced them after considering Dr. Dunn’s 6-year-old daughter. She said she did not want her colleague’s daughter to grow up without her father.
Several months after the surgery, both doctors are in perfect health. they share the same scarring and formed a bond stronger than before. To show is gratitude, Dr. Dunn flooded her office with flowers, gave his hero a cake, and wrote her a special note. Dr. Coleman says she was particularly moved by the note but she does not feel comfortable being regarded as a hero. In order to always remember their experience, Dr. Coleman gave Dr. Dunn a Tiffany money clip in the shape of a kidney and she received, in turn, a pair of kidney-shaped Tiffany earrings.
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