Kidney Transplant News

Joseph Vohs, an insurance agent with Farmers Insurance in Shawnee, will donate a kidney anonymously in Chicago at the end of the month. Vohs said he hopes the procedure can become more commonplace in the Kansas City area.

Edna Marie Medeiros chokes up talking about how Season of Sharing—The Chronicle’s annual giving campaign—helped her move to a larger apartment so her son Antonio could have his own room while recovering from a kidney transplant.

Melissa Arlio is an upbeat, healthy 26-year-old from a big Italian family in Wayne, NJ. With nothing to gain and a good deal to lose (namely, her job) Arlio elected to undergo surgery and donate one of her kidneys to a complete stranger last March. She did so in order to start an altruistic kidney …

They’re not related by blood, but the seven women who work at Loyola Hospital in Maywood have a special bond: They have each donated one of their kidneys to a stranger or acquaintance as part of Loyola’s Living Donor Kidney Transplant program’s “Pay it Forward” program.

Six months ago, dental hygienist Jodi Tamen sent one of her kidneys west from Chicago to a stranger in Los Angeles—a high-spirited, gray-bearded poet named G. Murray Thomas. Last week, Tamen flew out herself to celebrate with the man whose life her gift restored.

The work of the National Kidney Registry has galvanized 50 centers across the country, transplanting record numbers of kidney patients over the last three years. On Thursday, the momentum will continue with the largest kidney chain to date, a swap that is expected to save 28 lives at the Methodist San Antonio Transplant Center in …

Corrie Lynn Wright watched her stepfather waste away from kidney disease for more than 15 years, dying when she was 24 years old. She says that experience is what compelled her to undergo surgery this month to give away a kidney to save a stranger’s life while asking nothing in return.

Five Chicago-area adults who have stepped forward to give kidneys to strangers may help save the lives of as many as two dozen people, thanks to transplant chains that will multiply the impact of the donations.

When one brave young woman gave a total stranger a second chance at life, her generous act had more profound consequences than she’d ever imagined.  …

Payton Dimick, at just 1 year old, became the world’s youngest participant in a chain of paired kidney exchanges between computer-matched donors and recipients. Payton received a kidney from a total stranger, and her father, Jason Dimick, donated one of his to a stranger in return.