Fearing’s decision to “re-donate” his kidney paved the way for the first ever donated kidney to be removed from its original recipient and transplanted again into a new patient – the third person to have the organ.
Twenty-five-year-old Ray Fearing had waited 10 years for a new kidney.
At 15, he had been diagnosed with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) – a disease that causes scar tissue to form on the part of the kidney that filters waste out of the blood, ultimately leading to kidney failure.
“Try telling a 15 year old that he’s chronically ill – it didn’t set in right away,” Fearing said of being diagnosed. “Then I had to go on all sorts of medications to improve kidney function, and that’s when I really started to feel sick. It was a really difficult time back then.”
Read more: Fox News
