Grocery Cashier Finds Out Customer's Wife Needs New Kidney, So She Offers Hers
Waiting for an organ transplant can be a never-ending battle. Even if you qualify for a transplant, there’s no guarantee you’ll even receive the needed organ in time to save your life.
According to the Living Kidney Donation Network, there are an estimated 93,000 people waiting for this single organ alone.
Talk about needing a miracle. For many, the wait can feel hopeless. But for one woman in Alabama, that wait has ended all thanks to a stranger.
Donnie Drummond headed to the hospital one day in 2015 when she found it difficult to breathe. She never expected what that single visit would lead to.
“Doctor said I got there just in time because I had a lot of fluid on my heart,” she told WLOX. “I could have died in my sleep.”
Diagnosed with kidney failure, the woman has spent over three years on dialysis, waiting for an organ that might never come.
But, thanks to the kind heart of a compassionate cashier, everything changed the day Drummond’s husband, Eddie Drummond, headed to Wayne Lee’s Grocery for his daily breakfast.
Woman to receive kidney from grocery store cashier: ‘My miracle blessing lady’: The woman will receive the kidney from a cashier at a grocery store. https://t.co/i5Gv2wQslB #US pic.twitter.com/GgKrbt2IWz
— Patrick (@cahulaan) January 3, 2019
Eddie Drummond works for Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi, about 40 miles from his home in Mobile, Alabama.
He works early hours, and Wayne Lee’s is the only place open early enough where the hard-working husband can get a bite to eat before he starts his day.
“I get here about five in the morning,” he told WLOX. “That’s the only place that’s open.” And it’s a good thing, otherwise, he might never have met Leilani Aguirre.
One morning, Aguirre could see Drummond was down. He told the cashier about his wife’s need for a kidney, never expecting the response he received.
Mississippi Proud: Cashier donating kidney to wife of her regular customer>> https://t.co/lQ2tXRd3f5 pic.twitter.com/Wr3UNkUeex
— wdam (@wdam) January 3, 2019
“I told him I’ll give her mine,” Aguirre said. “And he was shocked.” Aguirre had asked herself, “What if it happens to me and I need a stranger to come help me?”
The timing couldn’t have been more perfect, as Aguirre was an O-positive blood match with Dummond’s wife. Together, they surprised Donnie Drummond with the news.
“I asked for a miracle blessing,” Donnie Drummond said. “And (God) sent it to me because He’s not done with me on this earth.”
A heartwarming story that reminds us what a little willing kindness and compassion can do. We will keep these women in our prayers as they go into surgery at the New Orleans Ochsner Medical Center this spring.
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