HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. — Wayne Newell has a lot to celebrate these days. In a last-ditch effort to find a living kidney donor, he put up a billboard off of Interstate 77 last October.
Beth Perryman from Mooresville saw that billboard, and she answered his call.
“I emailed him and said I don’t know what this means, but what do we do? How do we move forward?” Perryman told Channel 9′s Gina Esposito.
Perryman also has an O blood type, and she felt it was a literal sign to help.
“I think I was more shocked than anything else, you know? That somebody was actually going to help me,” Newell said.
“They invited us to dinner and we just had an instant connection,” Perryman said. “So much in common, so many laughs; I think the waiter had to kick us out.”
We reported last October when Newell told Channel 9 he was looking for a hero to save his life from kidney disease. He was getting dialysis three times a week and was told it could be three more years until he got a kidney.
He was about to get on another transplant list to improve his chances.
“I never got one call in five and a half years,” Newell said.
Perryman says she immediately went through a series of psychological, blood, and heart tests to see if she was eligible for the surgery. By January, doctors gave her the green light.
“Out of the blue, I get a text from her, and she said, how does March 5 sound?” Newell said. “So I was like, you mean for dinner? She goes, no, for the transplant. What the Hell, I have nothing going on!”
Both of their families came to the hospital for the surgery, and the staff at Atrium Health celebrated with Newell when the surgery was over.
Perryman says she never thought of backing out, especially since the two formed such a strong bond. Three weeks post-surgery, she almost feels back to normal and wishes others would consider becoming living donors.
“It’s an amazing gift to be able to give somebody,” Perryman said.
“There are so many really wonderful people like Beth out there who are willing to donate a kidney, and they just don’t know where to go, you know, there’s no communication. I had to put a billboard out,” Newell said.
Newell says he plans to pay it forward and is currently trying to help others who need kidneys. Though, he says they might not be as lucky as him to find a friend in the process.
“There are so many things I want to do for her and her husband, and that will come,” Newell said. “I feel like I owe her everything.”
(VIDEO: 3-year-old receives heart transplant from young donor after deadly crash)
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