Charlie Garaventa, Food & Beverage Manager at the Country Club of Landfall in Wilmington, N.C., will help Ingela Kirby, 74, get off dialysis when the operation is performed on February 2. Garaventa, whose son benefitted from a donor 10 years ago and has since been active in promoting kidney donations, offered to get tested to see if he was a match for Kirby after she told him in a dining-room conversation that none had been found. He was also inspired to “pay it forward” by an annual charity event held at the club that supports the cause.
Charles Garaventa, Food & Beverage Manager at the Country Club of Landfall in Wilmington, N.C., will donate a kidney to Ingela Kirby, a 74-year-old club member, through operations that will be performed on February 2 at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., television station WECT of Wilmington reported.
Ingela Kirby had no idea her kidneys were failing, WECT reported, after she was in a medically induced coma for 20 days following a heart transplant. She would remain in the hospital for four months and while her new heart would eventually work, her kidneys were shot.
After doctors told Kirby she would remain on dialysis for the rest of her life unless she got a kidney transplant, WECT reported, she was put on a transplant list but told the wait could be five years.
Then this past August, Garaventa became the answer to a prayer. “We sort of had given up hope and he said ‘I’ll do it,'” Kirby told WECT.
Garaventa isn’t a relative and wasn’t even a close friend, WECT reported, but he chatted with Kirby often when she and her husband would come into the dining room at the club for dinner.
“I knew she wasn’t feeling well and she was explaining to me that she couldn’t get a match for different reasons and I said to her, ‘Do you want me to get tested?” Garaventa told the station. “And she said ‘Are you serious?’ and I said, ‘Of course; I wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t.’ So that’s how it all started.”
Ingela told WECT that she was shocked by the offer.
“Well, both my husband and I said, ‘Are you sure?,’ and, ‘You better go home and talk to your wife,’ and then we cried,” she said.
Garaventa, 54, went through a series of tests in September and turned out to be a perfect match, WECT said. And he revealed that he was moved to act because he knows all too well what it’s like to watch a loved one hope and pray for a donor. His son, Daniel, had a kidney transplant 10 years ago. Garaventa turned out to be a match in that case, too, but thanks to an organ donor, he didn’t have to undergo the surgery.
“We were blessed enough to get a cadaver up at Duke and he was only on the list for two days,” Garaventa said with emotion.
A kidney given by a living donor functions on average for about 12 to 20 years, WECT reported, while a kidney from a deceased organ donor last about 8 to 12 years.
Garaventa is well aware that his son could need another new transplant at some point, but told WECT that he still felt like being a donor for Kirby was something he had to do. His family, especially his wife Patti, supports his decision, the station reported.
“I just felt I needed to pay if forward,” Garaventa said with tears.
He added that he also drew inspiration from the Willie Stargell Celebrity Invitational, which is held every year at the Country Club of Landfall, as an event that raises money to help local people living with kidney disease. Daniel Garaventa has been honored by the Stargell Foundation for inspiring people to become donors, WECT reported.
While Kirby’s transplant is scheduled for the morning of February 2, she and Garaventa were scheduled to travel to Durham and the Duke Medical Center on the day before, February 1—which happens to be Kirby’s birthday.
“I told her I had a birthday present for her, but the doctors would have to unwrap it,” Garaventa said with a big smile.
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