So, on Friday morning, surgeons at Northwestern Memorial Hospital will remove one of Coyne's healthy kidneys and transplant it to de la Vega, a 49-year-old Filipino immigrant and mother of two who was diagnosed with renal failure three years ago and has continued to work even as she's undergone dialysis ever since.
The transplant "will give me another 25 or 30 years of life," de la Vega, clearly still astounded by her customer's generosity, said Tuesday as she sat with Coyne at Pershing East Magnet School, 3113 S. Rhodes, where he works. "It's unbelievable: a complete stranger offering his kidney to me."
Coyne has been a regular at de la Vega's Jewel for years, always choosing her checkout line because she's so cheerful. Two years ago, he noticed she'd lost weight and didn't look well, and he asked: Are you OK? She told him about her condition, how she has to undergo dialysis every night for eight hours and how, though she could survive for many years on dialysis, it left her weak and exhausted. Coyne, 52, listened. Then, he told her: I could donate a kidney for you.
She hardly knew him, didn't know if he really meant it and still was hoping her sister would turn out to be a good match for a transplant. But, when it turned out her sister wasn't a good match, Coyne offered again. That was just before last Thanksgiving. Last month, tests confirmed Coyne's kidney would be a good match.
His wife, Emily, was apprehensive, he said, but was reassured when she found out he could live a healthy life with just one kidney. He doesn't see what he's doing as anything extraordinary. "It was an easy decision," Coyne said. "All I have to do is fall asleep on a table, and then the doctors take over."
There's a news video here.
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