SOCIETY
Ray Fearing makes medical history with recycled kidney transplant
Baku, April 28 (AZERTAC). When Ray Fearing`s body didn`t take the kidney that was supposed to save his life, he was understandably depressed.
But instead of letting that consume him, the 27-year-old jumped at the opportunity to donate the kidney to someone else who needed it, inadvertently creating medical history, CNN reports.
Fearing, who is from Arlington Heights, Ill., has been chronically ill with a type of kidney disease called focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) since he was 15, Fox News reports.
So when he learned that he would be receiving a new kidney -- donated by his sister, Cera -- he was ecstatic.
Unfortunately, within days of the surgery, Fearing started to feel unwell.
"A week after surgery, we did a biopsy, and that didn`t heal very well," Fearing told Fox News. "I had a lot of internal bleeding, and it was probably the most painful experience of my life."
Doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, where Fearing was being treated, told him that they would most likely need to remove the new kidney.
Fearing was then told that instead of just throwing the kidney away -- as has always been done -- he could choose to donate the kidney to another person, since it was Fearing`s blood and not the kidney that was the issue at hand.