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CHICAGO, Illinois (WBBM) — The kindness of strangers can change lives. A downstate Illinois restaurant owner was shocked by the number of people who reached out to help him when he needed it most.
Nick Bohn is a husband and father, and he’s very independent.
“I’ve never been one to ask for anything, I’d just rather try to do it myself,” he said.
Molly Clyden is a wife and mother, and by nature a helper.
“I’ve always been the person on the giving end. I’ve always been the one to … I want to help others,” she said.
Bohn and Clyden said it’s darn pretty great that they found each other.
In late June, Bohn got an amazing gift from Clyden – one of her kidneys. The process began back in November.
“My doctor thought I had a gallbladder issue, and so she sent me in for an ultrasound and bloodwork,” he said. “She called me the next morning at like 7 o’clock in the morning, and was like, ‘Your ultrasound came back fine, your gallbladder’s fine, but you’ve bloodwork showing you have kidney disease.'”
Bohn said he went to the emergency room and was told he was in stage 5 renal failure.
“It just hit us like a ton of bricks,” he said.
His best option was finding a living donor for a kidney transplant.
Bohn isn’t one to ask for help, but his wife, Lindsay, posted his story on Facebook. He said the number of people who offered to donate blew him away.
“I was getting messages from Indiana, from Florida, from Virginia,” he said. “We got interviewed by the local paper, and the guy, the reporter doing the story was like, ‘Yeah, my wife signed up to donate to you.’ I was like, I didn’t even know the guy, I didn’t know her.”
Clyden just happened to be on Facebook that evening.
“Didn’t even read the full post, I just read that he needed one, and I shot off a message right away,” she said.
But Clyden wasn’t one of the far-away folks. She lives in the next tiny town over from Bohn.
You wouldn’t know it by seeing them now, but they had never met before.
“There’s a one in 100,000 chance that she was that perfect of a perfect match without being my sibling,” Bohn said.
“I’ve had jokes on people. ‘Are you sure you’re not related, like a family tree somewhere?'” Clyden said.
The transplant surgery was performed at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
Bohn’s wife was at his side. Clyden’s entourage included a stuffed dinosaur.
“It’s my middle daughter’s. So, she wanted me to have it with me,” she said.
Clyden wore a t-shirt saying “Kidneys are made to be shared.”
In pre-op, Bohn and Clyden were in adjacent rooms. After lots of hugs from loved ones, it was showtime.
The delicate surgery took about four hours. It was a laparoscopic procedure, meaning smaller incisions, and it went without a hitch.
“When the doctor, the surgeon took her kidney out, she said it was a perfect kidney,” Bohn said.
“She said it was beautiful,” Clyden said.
“After two weeks already, my bloodwork’s showing that it’s working perfectly, like better than probably my other two have ever worked,” Bohn said.
“I was happy it was done and I did it, able to give him a nice kidney,” Clyden said.
Bohn could finally breathe easy after months of pain, anxiety, and dialysis, and he has a new friend – “kidney buddies for life,” as Clyden put it.
“She’s an amazing, awesome human being to want to do this for a stranger. I will never be able to thank her enough,” Bohn said.
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