CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Social media is a huge part of most people’s lives, used for all different reasons. For one Charlotte-area man, it’s what saved his life.
Steve Sanders was in kidney failure. As a father of two, he knew a transplant was the best option to maintain his quality of life. He posted on Facebook looking for a match and what happened next solidified a lifelong friendship.
A picture snapped in the hospital with beaming smiles seems to show a friendship that’s spanned years. But the men in the picture were essentially strangers, a life-saving kidney donation bonding them forever.
“It is a big ask to ask someone to give you a kidney. It’s not like borrowing $5 to go to the store,” Steve Sanders said.
He has a rare, genetic kidney disease. He had two options, dialysis treatment or a transplant. He knew a transplant was his best option so the search for a donor began. He took it to Facebook and before long it caught the attention of Chris Perez’s wife. He said for some reason, she made him look at it.
“I read a little bit about him, and he’s got two kids, I’ve got three kids. I don’t know there was just something about it that struck me. Here’s this father just like me,” Perez said.
Perez said he put himself in Sanders’ shoes and decided he should at least try. He underwent extensive testing and out of the 26 people who tried to help Sanders, he was the one match.
“If someone comes in and says I want to donate a kidney to somebody, most of the time it doesn’t work because something with the donor, something with the matching, something goes wrong,” Dr. Vincent Casingal with Atrium Health said.
The two spoke on the phone and hit it off instantly.
The surgery was in January, and it was a success.
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“I feel just so much better than I did before,” Sanders said. “The beauty of it is, as soon as they put Chris’ kidney inside of me, it began to work immediately. That doesn’t always happen.”
Down one kidney, Perez says he doesn’t feel any different.
It’s an untraditional start to a friendship, but one they say will last forever.
“He’s a really, really great friend and it’s not just because I gave him an organ,” Perez said. “We get along really, really well I’m honored to have gotten the opportunity to do this for Steve.”
Doctors say living donors are always the best option. Both Sanders and Perez encourage anyone interested to do their research.
Contact Chloe Leshner at cleshner@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.