Naperville couple want Kidney Transplant to be Message of Kindness
Aaron and Tanya Rhoden always have big ideas together. They eloped in Hawaii in 2016, when he proposed at sunset on a mountain in Maui, and she wanted to get married the very next day.
Preparing for a kidney transplant together is another life challenge the couple is making together. In a surgery later this month, Tonya, 41, will give Aaron, 50, one of her kidneys.
It’s a big moment for the Naperville couple, left in a holding pattern since a 2019 stroke left Aaron partially without the use of his right side and awaiting a kidney transplant. In the meantime, he does dialysis multiple times a week.
They hope the surgery will help them get back to the things they love - traveling places, climbing mountains, swinging golf clubs and seeing family.
They also hope it can show people that everyone is the same under out skin, that we can help each other out more than we think. The couple says in a time of racial tension, with so much negative news happening in the world, they want to remind people to be kind.
“We all bleed the same” Tonya said. “All the way down to our organs.”
Their journey began on July 14, 2019. Aaron had always had high blood pressure, which that morning culminated in a stroke at home. He remembers his body feeling like string taffy. Tonya rushed him to the hospital, where he was told he would either need dialysis or a new kidney.
His doctor, Joseph Leventhal, interim chief of organ transplantation at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, said their situation is somewhat unusual.
Transplants involving a spouse or life partner are only a little over 10 percent of living donor transplants, he said. Beyond this, because the couple is interracial, their match is extra unique because ethnicity can affect tissue type.
“The ability of Tonya to be blood type compatible and a suitable match for her husband, it beat the odds.”, he said.
Their situation, Leventhal said, might dispel some myths around organ donation. People do not need to be blood related, or the same ethnicity.
“The beauty of this story is that my DNA is 70-something percent West African, and she’s probably German, English, American. She’s blond hair and blue eyes, and it’s all coming together. Aaron said.
The Rhodens want to raise awareness that more people might be able to donate and help strangers than they know. Many ways exist to seek organ donation or help others, including sharing status on social media or what’s called a paired donation, a transplant swap in which a friend or loved one steps up to make a donation to their patients, and if not the recipient, but matches with another pair in the same situation.
“Ordinary people can do extraordinary acts of kindness and love and actually save someone’s life.” Aaron said.
Since they found out he would need a transplant, and that Tonya could be a match, she has changed her habits entirely, hoping to keep her body, and his potential kidney, healthy. No more Reese’s Pieces, no more heavy foods. She lost 25 pounds.
“It went from meat and potatoes to kale and hummus”, she said.
She even quit her real estate job, knowing in the pandemic it would create too much exposure to the virus. “Our life has been on pause”, she said.
Of his wife’s actions, Aaron said, “I’m undeservedly blessed to have her love in my life.”
After his surgery they hope to plan a vacation. She is looking forward to seeing Aaron hold a golf club and watching a movie without him falling asleep.
“She said, “I’m looking forward to seeing my husband just live again.”
· From Chicago Tribune, 6/20/21, written by Alison Bowen.
Update: Tonya donated her kidney and Aaron received a kidney transplant on June 21, 2021, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Tonya was released from the hospital after 1 and 1/2 days and Aaron was released after 6 days. Aaron now has a healthy working kidney, and it is the start of a new chapter for both Tonya and Aaron. They are both interested in helping to raise awareness of the importance of organ donation and spreading the word about living kidney donation.