John Ivanowski Missouri dad gets kidney transplant from his own daughter despite objections as the selfless daughter secretly prepared months ahead as a living donor.
A Missouri daughter has given her ailing father the shock of a lifetime when she defied his demands and secretly donated her kidney to him in a life saving organ transplant surgery.
John Ivanowski, 60, who suffers from a form of kidney disease, relied on a dialysis machine every couple of days for about five hours each time. While daughter Delayne Ivanowski, 25, of Kirkwood urged him to let her donate her organ to improve his health and quality of life, he kept saying no.
‘I’m like, ‘You’re too young, you’ve got a long time to be here and my time’s limited’,’ the father told KMOV.
But Delayne’s persistence was too much to overcome, and she began the process of donating behind her father’s back, despite his opposition over the course of many months. She said she knew that without her becoming a living donor for her dad, he could wait years to find a donor.
The daughter told of reaching out to her dad’s coordinator, and once her father was in good enough shape for the transplant, they began running tests on her to make sure she was a match.
‘100,000 people waiting for a kidney transplant’
‘I was like, ‘I’m going to do it. I don’t care how mad he is at me. I don’t care if he kicks me out of the house or hates me or doesn’t say a word to me for the rest of my life,” the nurse told ABC News. ‘At least he’ll be living a good life and not hooked up to a machine.’
The gift from daughter to father took place with John unaware until the surgery was done and she came walking through his hospital room door the next day.
The moment was filmed and posted to TikTok by Delayne that showed her father in complete shock when she walked in.
‘Oh my God, are you kidding me,’ the father said upon suddenly realizing his own daughter was the donor. ‘I knew you were up to something.’
Dr. Jason Wellen, kidney and pancreas transplant surgical director at the Washington University & Barnes-Jewish Transplant Center said Delayne’s selflessness helped her father leapfrog a long waitlist.
‘There are over 100,000 people in the country right now waiting for a kidney transplant,’ Wellen told ABC News. ‘The one way we can get people transplanted within a few months is if they come to us with a living donor.’
Wellen said he understood John Ivanowski’s concern for his own daughter, but said living donors face no additional medical risks.
How kidney transplants work
‘We spend a tremendous amount of energy and resources and effort to work on every person that comes forward as a living donor,’ he said. ‘To the point that we feel extremely comfortable knowing that if we approve for them donation, that they’ll have no higher risk for the rest of their life of renal failure or any other medical issues.’
Delayne posted footage on social media in hopes of raising funds to cover the transplant.
She asked for $6,000 to cover surgery expenses; as of Wednesday morning more than $11,600 was raised.
Any anger John initially held has disappeared now that he no longer needs dialysis.
‘I wouldn’t change a thing. I feel so much better,’ he told ABC News.
