When Jeramy Davies was a senior at Texas Tech University in 2010, he helped organize a charity drive for Be the Match®, the national program that matches potential donors to those needing a bone marrow transplant. Little did he know that five years later he would donate his own bone marrow to a stranger in New Jersey— Kelly Ribeiro, who was being treated for lymphoma. And in 2018, he would give Ms. Ribeiro one of his kidneys, effectively saving her life twice.
Since hospital protocol forbids the exchange of any information between donor and recipient for one year, and then only if both parties agree, Mr. Davies and Ms. Ribeiro remained unknown to each other immediately following her successful bone marrow transplant. In 2016, Mr. Davies reached out to her and they began exchanging emails and text messages and speaking frequently by phone.
But over time, they both faced significant challenges. Ms. Ribeiro was dealing with kidney failure due to her previous condition. During a bout with pneumonia she fell into a coma. When she emerged, she began dialysis three times a week. “I never felt so sick and depleted as I did with kidney failure,” she says. “Every day, I could feel the life draining out of me.”
At the same time, Mr. Davies was helping his wife batt le a brain tumor that would take her life in July 2017. “Kelly was great moral support for me,” Mr. Davies recalls. “She understood everything we were going through, and she was a huge source of strength.”
But Ms. Ribeiro did not want to burden him with her own struggle, and even as her kidney function dwindled to 19 percent, she did not ask for his help. Only after her mother told Mr. Davies how sick she was did he understand the full extent of Ms. Ribeiro’s situation. Immediately, he offered Ms. Ribeiro his kidney. Immediately, she turned him down.
“It didn’t feel right,” she says. But he persisted, and in late December 2018, she underwent a successful kidney transplant at The Mount Sinai Hospital. Since Ms. Ribeiro now had Mr. Davies’ immune cells and even his blood type from the earlier bone marrow transplant, they were a 100 percent match. This also meant she would require fewer antirejection medications.
“It’s the most satisfying thing I’ve ever done,” says Mr. Davies, 38. For her part, Ms. Ribeiro says, “I never met anyone so selfless. He really acted like it was no big deal. But he saved my life twice. He is my guardian angel, and he is now family forever.”
Ms. Ribeiro’s surgeon, Vikram Wadhera, MBBS, Assistant Professor, Surgery, says, “The surgery for both patients went extremely well but, for most of us involved, it was the human and emotional aspects of this case that touched us deeply.”
Says donor surgeon Edward Chin, MD, Professor of Surgery, and Director of the Living Kidney Donor Program at the Mount Sinai Health System: “This is such a compelling story. It was such an altruistic thing for Jeramy to do. It reminds us that there’s so much good in the world.”
This winter, Ms. Ribeiro has been regaining her strength and looking forward to jump-starting her life, which had been on hold for the past six years. She expects to complete her master’s degree in Library and Information Science from Rutgers University later this year. Mr. Davies, who now lives in Denver, says he is close to getting back to his routine. He is looking forward to snowboarding and training for a triathlon later this year.
Living donation is the shortest route to organ transplantation and often results in a closer match and better outcome for the recipient. The Zweig Family Center for Living Donation at Mount Sinai is one of the largest living donor programs in the United States.