A father was caught on camera breaking into tears after finding out his daughter was his secret kidney donor.
25-year-old Delayne Ivanowski from Missouri is a dedicated nurse and a loving daughter who wanted to do everything in her power after her father, 60-year-old John, was diagnosed with immunoglobulin A (IgA) deficiency.
Due to the lack of antibodies in his system, the man’s immune system attacked his kidneys with doctors telling him the only way to fix the issue was to undergo a kidney transplant.
Following the diagnosis, the man was forced to spend up to twenty hours a week on kidney dialysis while waiting for a kidney donor.
While Delayne was a positive match, John refused to let her become his kidney donor because he previously lost his daughter’s only sibling to cancer and didn’t want his only remaining child to take any risks.
“I thought, I lost my boy and if anything happened to Delayne, I don’t know what I would do. It was a big concern,” he told ABC News.
The 25-year-old nurse, however, wanted nothing more than to see her father healthy and out of the hospital which is why she decided to step in and become her father’s anonymous donor.
“He likes to walk my dog and run with my dog and he wants to do all this stuff, but now he’s hooked up to a machine. I don’t think that’s any way that anybody should have to live,” she said.
“I was like, ‘I’m going to do it. I don’t care how mad he is at me. I don’t care if he kicks me out of the house or hates me or doesn’t say a word to me for the rest of my life. At least he’ll be living a good life and not hooked up to a machine.”
After sufficient tests and a months-long process, the family finally received the good news that John was ready for a kidney transplant.
“They called me at work and said, ‘We’ve got an anonymous donor,’ and I about dropped the phone and thought are you kidding me?” John added.
“People can be on the [waiting] list for five, six, seven, eight years and go through dialysis for that long, and I just couldn’t believe it.”
It wasn’t until the transplant was over that Delayne surprised her father and revealed she was the anonymous donor. The emotional moment, during which the father broke into tears, was caught on camera and has since been making rounds on the internet.
“Oh my God. Are you kidding me?” the sobbing dad said in the video. “I knew you were up to something.”
While admitting that he was initially upset, John later admitted that he was incredibly grateful to his daughter and that he’s glad he’s off the machines.
“I can’t stop crying,” he said.
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