Mom Receives 'Gift of Life' from Son Killed Suddenly by Stroke

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An Illinois mother said she is still devastated days after emerging successfully from kidney transplant surgery. 

The donor? Her 24-year-old son, killed unexpectedly by a stroke as his mom waited for a transplant. 

The pain "hurts so bad," Rose Perry told ABC News. 

Perry was being treated for kidney failure and type 2 diabetes, according to ABC News, when her son Ronald Perry Jr. died from a stroke which caused coma and fatal cardiac arrhythmia. 



She was at the hospital in early May, registering for the transplant wait list, when she got the news, according to the Chicago Tribune. 

At first the grief from her son's death was overwhelming. "I've never met anyone in their lifetime that ever had anything bad to stay about him," she told ABC News. 

The idea of his body being "cut up" was too much to bear. 

"I wanted my son. I didn't want his kidney, I wanted him," she told theTribune. 

But: "My husband and my [youngest] son said, 'We think you should let them do it,'" Perry told ABC News. "I cried my eyes out and said, 'I don't want his kidney and I want my child.' " 

Testing soon proved the kidney was a match and in two days, Perry was approved for the transplant operation. 

"I was numb by then. There were things I don’t even remember them. I don’t remember them taking me to surgery," she told ABC News. 

Perry may have waited up to five years for a matched organ,according to Advocate Christ Medical Center, where she was treated. 

"For her truly this is the gift of life," said Dr. Deepak Mital, who performed the transplant operation just one day after Ronald's death, according to the Tribune. 

The new organ "instantly" doubled Perry's lifespan, Mital told the paper. 

Perry was discharged three days later, in time to attend her son's May 22 funeral, according to the Tribune, "his kidney already a part of her."

She had one requirement, though, according to ABC News: The doctors were not allowed to give her Ronald's heart.

 

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Poor Mother, she must be devestated

[JustPokeHerFace 2,564]

My Mother has specifically told me that it's almost impossible for a parent to get over losing their child. I can't even imagine the pain that the poor woman had to go through. 

[Hauser 1,262]

This is so sad to read, I can't even imagine the feelings of confusion and sadness the family, particularly the mother must feel.