ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky. — A heartwarming reunion between an organ donor and their recipient took place in Elizabethtown on Friday afternoon.
Tammy McMillin and Debbie Patterson were once complete strangers, but you could never tell.
Patterson is an organ recipient, and McMillin is her donor. The two met at Mark’s Feed Store Bar-B-Q and shared meal together for the first time since the 2019 kidney transplant.
“It's amazing to me, I'm carrying around a part of her body,” Patterson said of McMillin. "If it wasn't for Tammy, I probably wouldn't be around. I wouldn't have the quality of life I have now.”
It all started when Patterson's husband, Jerry Jones, reached out to LeighAnn Saylor, founder of Mulligan's Living Kidney Donors. She told him to think outside of the box to find an organ donor for his wife.
That's exactly what he did. Jerry began displaying a large banner on the back of his truck for all to see as he took his work routes.
“It's been an incredible, emotional experience for both of us,” Jones said.
McMillin donated her kidney after finding out her childhood friend, who also needed a kidney, couldn't receive it due to an infection.
“It was heartbreaking,” McMillin said. “It was really because I felt like, you know, I wanted to do something, but I couldn't.”
That's when Saylor stepped in again and asked if she would consider donating to a stranger. McMillin said it was a decision that required prayer but was so worth it.
“When people ask me why I did it, I put it in terms of well, what if one of my kids needed one? What if one of my grandkids needed one? I would hope that somebody would step up,” she said.
And better yet, because the donation was on behalf of her childhood friend, she received a kidney from a stranger as well. Saylor explained that the process is called a ‘pair donor exchange.’
Saylor founded Mulligan’s because her husband received a kidney transplant in 2011, and she remembers how lonely it was to advocate on her own. So, she said stories like these always warm her heart.
“It never gets old. I get goosebumps every time I talk about it,” Saylor said. “In every living donor I have, they say they'd give another kidney if they could.”
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