Landlord's Gift to Tenant: A Kidney
James Love asked Barbara Thomas to fix a leaky faucet, but she ended up doing much more.
When landlady Barbara Thomas offered to donate a kidney to one of her tenants, James Love, he had a hard time believing the offer was real.
After all, he had only called her to his family's apartment in Sleepy Hollow, Illinois to fix a leaky faucet.
However, when Thomas found out that Love suffered from sickle cell anemia and was struggling to find a kidney donor match because of a rare blood type, she volunteered to be tested immediately, the Chicago Tribune reports.
"It was like a heard a voice in my head saying, 'It is you.' I didn't really think about it—I just did it," Thomas, a mother of three, told the newspaper.
On October 22, the transplant operation took place and doctors said the outcome was successful. If not for his landlady, Love could have waits for up to four years for a suitable donor.
Love, who had suffered renal failure and years of dialysis due to his condition, told NBC Chicago that his faith and hope kept him going as he waited for a match.
The married father of six said that he now thinks of Thomas as his "sister" as well as his friend.
Sarah Beldo is a journalist in San Francisco
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