Ask and ye shall receive — eventually!
Former Marine Park councilman Lew Fidler, who made a public appeal for a new kidney six months ago, found two matching donors in one day this week.
Fidler said a local “kidney matchmaker” found him a donor the same day another organization found him a match.
The politician said doctors have approved the donor that local transplant facilitator Chaya Lifschutz found for him and he hopes that the matching donor who registered with Renewal, a Borough Park-based organization Fidler reached out to in October, shares the gift of life with someone else in need.
“Since the hospital was working with Chaya’s donor first, now that he’s been medically cleared and we have a surgery date, I called over the Renewal people,” Fidler said. “They should now be able to help somebody else.”
Transplant donors must exactly match the receiver’s tissue type to prevent rejection of the new organ, which can make it difficult to find a viable donor — particularly for people of Jewish heritage, who face religious strictures which can discourage organ donation.
Fidler suffered kidney failure in 2012 after suffering a severe allergic reaction to a prescription medication, and was on thrice-weekly dialysis. Fidler has been on the organ transplant waiting list since the spring of 2013.
Because the average wait for a matching kidney harvested from a deceased donor is three to five years, Fidler began searching for a living donor last fall seeking help from Renewal and Lifschutz, who donated a kidney to a stranger in 2005 and has devoted herself to matching donors to needy patients ever since.
Fidler, who represented Marine Park in the Council for 12 years, said the donor is a local man he has known for years, but who wishes to remain anonymous.
He hasn’t had the chance to thank the altruistic donor yet — but Fidler said he can’t even express the gratitude he feels.
“I haven’t even spoken to him yet,” he said. “There really aren’t words — I’m so grateful, I’m so excited, a little bit nervous but all things being equal, how do you say thank you to someone who is willing to do that?”
The surgery is scheduled for May 21.
