Michigan Man Finds Kidney on Facebook
April 6, 2011— -- When Jeff Kurze found out his kidneys were failing, he and his wife Roxy put their lives on hold. The young couple from Warren, Michigan, hoped to start a family, but dialysis left Jeff, 35, too frail. He needed a new kidney.
After Jeff suffered a mini stroke last fall, doctors said it could take five years for him to climb the kidney waiting list and get the type O match he needed. That's when a desperate Roxy took to Facebook.
"Wishing a kidney would fall out of the sky so my husband can stop suffering," Roxy Kurze, a 30-year-old web designer, wrote on her Facebook wall. "So if anyone knows of a live donor with type O blood, PLEASE let me know."
Some people replied to say they'd get tested. But Roxy was skeptical.
"Sometimes people say stuff just so that other people will comment," Roxy said.
Then she got a private message from Ricky Cisco, a 25-year-old comedian she met once through work.
"We never even liked each other's posts," Roxy said, explaining that although they were "Facebook friends," they were basically strangers.
Cisco, who knew he had type O blood, wrote that he wanted to talk about Jeff's kidney, and asked to meet Roxy for coffee.
"Roxy's post sort of resonated because I knew right off the bat I was a candidate," Cisco said.
Cisco had never considered live kidney donation before and knew little about it.
"I had heard horror story side -- you know, people waking up in bath tubs and that," he said. "I had never heard the voluntary side."
But some online research revealed that the surgical risks were low and that life with one kidney would be no different, he said.
So the two strangers met for coffee.
"He hugged me and said, 'I want to give my kidney to your husband,'" Roxy said. "I said, 'You don't even know us -- you don't know me, you don't know my husband.'"
But Cisco knew it was meant to be.
"I was prepared to donate my kidney to anybody but it was really nice to have Jeff and Roxy be the people getting it," he said.
Roxy eagerly waited for Jeff to get home from work that November night.
"She told me on the stairs when I got home from work. I was just so in shock that I had to sit down. I could hardly breathe," Jeff said. "I doubted it a little bit at first. I just said, 'We'll see what happens.' And what happened was amazing."
