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PHOENIX (KPHO/KTVK) — Joe DiTommaso says his closest friends and family alerted him that something wasn’t right.
“People say, ‘Joe, you look tired. You look ashy,'” he explained.
DiTommaso is a fiery and feisty proud Italian. But he was about to begin the toughest fight of his life.
He’d just been given devastating news — his kidneys were failing. If he didn’t get a new kidney immediately, his days were numbered.
“I was in denial just like I was in denial when one doctor suggested I go on dialysis and I’ve never been on dialysis. I told him it was a death wish,” DiTommaso said.
DiTommaso’s daughter, Jaime Pascale, immediately stepped up to save her dad.
“[I would] do whatever I need to do to help him,” she said. “Being his daughter, he was like, ‘I don’t want you going through this.’ I told him, ‘I would do anything for you. You are my dad.'”
As much as DiTommaso appreciated his daughter’s show of love, he felt guilty asking her to go through surgery to save his life.
“I never ever wanted her to go through this,” he said. “[She] being a lot stronger than me said to me, ‘Suck it up, buttercup. I’m your daughter. Why wouldn’t I do it?’ You would never want your child to go through this.”
Despite being warned about the grueling process to donate, Pascale went to the Mayo Clinic to get tested to see if she was a match for her dad.
The results came back.
DiTommaso and Pascale, father and daughter, were not a match.
DiTommaso is now in his 70s. He was not a priority on the donor recipient list because he’s too old.
The reality of getting a healthy kidney didn’t look promising at all.
DiTommaso described the process as agonizing.
“I just had to absorb it for a while and get over the anger,” he said. “Then I realized I am going to have to do something.”
There are hundreds of thousands of people across the country suffering from kidney failure.
DiTommaso’s case is not unique. In fact, it’s quite common.
Another Valley family was also dealing with kidney failure.
“I was scared first because I just had a baby and I want to live long for my daughter and be with her,” Jenn Nagunst said.
Having just given birth to a precious baby girl, Nagunst thought life was good. Starting a family brought tears of joy. Then, a phone call from doctors turned those tears of joy into tears of fear.
“At first, I thought, ‘This is not real,'” Nagunst recalled.
She found out she was extremely sick. Her kidneys were failing. But how can that be? Nagunst was healthy. She’s in her mid-30s.
Doctors immediately started her on dialysis, a painful and brutal process to clean the blood.
She has the scars to prove it.
“They would poke this 15-gauge needle into my arm,” she explained. “That’s how they would clean the blood. It was a big needle.”
One person who was by Nagunst’s side through all the painful dialysis was her mother-in-law, Kellee Maxwell.
“I never even thought, ‘Should I?’ Never,” Maxwell said.
It was never a question in her mind, but even talking about it, Maxwell was wrought with emotion.
“I’m going to cry,” she said. “I knew that I needed to do this. I have a beautiful granddaughter that Nagunst brought into our lives, and I want her to be here for her daughter.”
Maxwell wasted no time. She immediately went to the Mayo Clinic to get tested, just like Pascale had done for her father.
The results came back. Maxwell and Nagunst were a perfect match.
Maxwell remembers the moment vividly.
“We cried,” she said. “It was a very exciting day. We were a match.”
But that joy quickly turned to panic.
Doctors called the pair to warn them that even though they were a match, a successful transplant was not guaranteed.
There was too much of an age gap.
That’s when doctors urged them to sign up for the “paired exchange program.”
There’s extensive database of more than 100,000 patients waiting desperately for a kidney. It matches donors and recipients who share the same blood type and tissue.
When doctors at Mayo looked at all the test results, they were shocked to realize they had the chance to save two lives instead of one.
Pascale decided to donate her healthy kidney to a total stranger. Doing that put her dad, DiTommaso, at the top of the recipient list.
“I said, ‘Whatever I need to do,'” she said. “I didn’t care who got my kidney as long as it helps him.”
Soon after, DiTommaso got a phone call.
The Mayo Clinic found him a perfect match.
Nagunst and Maxwell also got a call the same day.
Doctors told them the good news — they found the perfect match.
Pascale was not a match for her father, but she was a match for the new mom. Her kidney would go to Nagunst, whom she did not know.
The kidney Maxwell initially intended to donate to her daughter-in-law went to DiTommaso, another stranger.
The transplants happened the same day.
More than a year after surgery, DiTommaso smiles from ear to ear grateful to be alive.
“Someone who donates a kidney is a tremendous altruistic gift and I’ve talked to my donor on the phone,” he said. “I haven’t met Kellee yet. I’m just elated that she did what she did.”
Now, 13 months later, DiTommaso and Nagunst finally had the chance to meet the people who saved their lives.
All four met up at the Italian American Club in central Phoenix. The moment they met, the room was filled with joy, tears and love.
Pascale sat next to Nagunst.
“It just blows my mind that this beautiful woman is walking around with my kidney,” he said. “There are no words to describe it, but I am just so happy and grateful that I can be a part of her taking care of her little girl. I’m thankful every day.”
Donating a kidney is a painful process, but worth it if you ask these four.
“I would do it again,” Maxwell said. “If I had three kidneys, I would do it again.”
DiTommaso turned to Maxwell with tears streaming down his face.
“This is proof that angels do exist,” he said. “They do exist, and they have a kidney they can give up.”
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