A young and sickly girl with failing kidneys has received a new kidney after her generous preschool teacher decided to intervene.
5-year-old Kayleigh Kulage from Pacific, Missouri, is a bubbly little girl who was born at just 26 weeks. After spending more than five months in the neonatal intensive care unit, Kayleigh was finally allowed to go home with her parents – but her condition never completely improved.
As the child’s mother, Desiree, explained according to Good Morning America, her daughter has been facing a series of tough health issues, including failing kidneys and partial blindness, following her premature birth.
On top of it all, Kayleigh’s compromised immune system prevented her from joining other kids in preschool and making new friends.
“Her whole life has been a lot of hospital visits, surgeries and doctors’ appointments. She’s been around doctors and nurses and adults her whole life, that’s all she really knows,” Desiree told GMA.
Due to her tiny size, Kayleigh had to wait for several years before she finally became eligible for a kidney transplant. On top of that, there was also the matter of finding a donor that was a positive match.
Fortunately, this is where the young girl’s special education teacher, Robin Mach, stepped in and decided to undergo a series of tests to determine if she could be the one to donate a kidney to Kayleigh.
“One day Desiree and I were just talking and I asked her: ‘Can the kidney be from an adult?’ And she said, ‘Yes’. I said what do I need to do to check it out? Maybe I’m small enough,” the teacher, who is under five feet tall, recalled.
In the following three months, Mach and Kulage underwent a series of tests before they were finally given a green light to proceed with a kidney transplant.
“When they gave us a surgery date, that’s when it got real that we were doing this. I wasn’t nervous about the surgery, but I was more nervous that something was going to happen that would keep us from being able to have the surgery, especially with COVID,” Mach added.
In February, after Mach, her student, and the 5-year-old’s parents self-isolated for two weeks, the kidney transplant was finally concluded in a 6-hour procedure.
Both Mach and Kayleigh have since been discharged from the hospital, whereas the little girl is reportedly already feeling better than ever before in her life.
“Kayleigh used to have dark circles under eyes and was kind of pale and now she has these rosy cheeks. She is the most resilient kid,” Desiree said. “And she has a better quality of life now. She can be ‘normal’ and not feel so sick.”
The proud mother also praised her daughter’s teacher who risked her own life to make the life of Kayleigh more enjoyable and free of daily dialysis.
“She acts like she just took her to the spa and painted her toes. She acts like it’s nothing,” Desiree said.
“I just don’t know how to thank somebody like her. All I keep on saying is, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.’”
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Replaced!