Lifelong friends receive kidney transplants from same donor

CTV Atlantic: Friends receive kidneys Lisa Walsh-Kirk and Jessica Pelletier met when they were young dialysis patients. Now, years later, the lifelong friends have both received kidneys from the same donor.

A remarkable story of happenstance has given two young women a new lease on life.

Lisa Walsh-Kirk and Jessica Pelletier met when they were young dialysis patients.

Now, years later, the lifelong friends have both received kidneys from the same donor.

“Jess and I met when I was 12 years old. She was one of the first girls I met at the IWK and we became really good friends,” says Walsh-Kirk. “We were roommates and we had transplants around the same time.”

However, both transplants failed, and the pair once again began waiting for the calls that would change their lives.

“It was our, me and my husband’s five-year wedding anniversary, so we were going to go out that night, but something told us not to go out,” says Pelletier.

“It was 10:30 at night and I was at my parents place,” says Walsh-Kirk. “It came as a big shock. It wasn’t something that I was expecting at all.”

The women had each received the call they had been waiting for – a kidney was waiting for them. But what happened next was even more remarkable.

“I was sitting in this room and I saw her (Pelletier) walking down the hall and I was like ‘what are you doing here?’” says Walsh-Kirk.

“I’m like, ‘I’m getting a kidney!’” says Pelletier. “She’s like ‘me too!’”

Not only had Pelletier and Kirk-Walsh received the life-changing call around the same time – they were each set to receive a kidney from the same donor.

Dr. Joseph Lawen performed both transplants and says the friends’ situation is almost unheard of.

“For them to have been friends and to have similar histories – first transplants lost some number years later and then to end up back in the OR on the same day, receiving kidneys from the same donor. That’s really interesting.”

Lawen says patients are typically on a waiting list for a kidney transplant for two-and-a-half years. Both Pelletier and Walsh-Kirk waited for longer, simply because there aren’t enough donors.

“I think we have a lot of friends that were watching over us too, that we lost over the years,” says Walsh-Kirk.

“It’s kind of nice to live on through them,” says Pelletier.

Now, with a new kidney and a new outlook on life, they are busy planning for the new lives they’ve been given.

“I have a lot of goals. I’m getting married. I can start a new life,” says Walsh-Kirk. “I feel alive. I have reasons to smile and get up in the morning and things to look forward to.”

“Just to have my weekends back with my little girl, family days…it just means everything to us,” says Pelletier.

The pair says the transplant means even more to them because they are experiencing it together.

“Just to know that it was somebody that I knew quite well getting the other kidney, made that more special, because I’ve seen her struggles,” says Pelletier.

They also have a special message to share.

“Sign your donor cards,” says Walsh-Kirk. “You can save somebody’s life.”

With files from CTV Atlantic's Kayla Hounsell