TEMPLE, Texas — The wait for people on the kidney transplant list can feel endless. No one can be sure when a match will come.
For the Horan family in Killeen, this problem hit close to home, but so did the solution.
"Thanks to God," Mary Jane Horan said. "He blessed me with my daughter, because of her, she saved my life."
Horan was on track to retire from Killeen to her native country of the Philippines with her husband, Dave Horan until her health began to decline.
"I was diagnosed, and I found out in 2016," Horan said.
Horan had a genetic kidney condition, but she never let that define her.
Horan created vlogs on YouTube with all sorts of videos, from cooking, traveling, dancing and more.
"Whenever she was going through dialysis, that's what she called her full-time job was being a content creator," Horan's 21-year-old daughter, Rosemary Horan-Edwards, said.
In 2022, Horan got lab work done.
"I was told I have 7% function kidney," Horan added.
After months of testing, Horan was approved to go on the kidney transplant waitlist, but that can take an indefinite amount of time.
"I thought that was the end of my life," Horan said. However, her youngest daughter stepped in.
"It was just a no-brainer to like help out my mom," Rosemary Horan-Edwards told 6 News. She was the perfect donor match.
"I don't have any like health issues and I'm the same blood type as her and everything," Horan-Edwards said.
March 27 is when the Horans went through successful procedures.
"On like a bigger scale, I was like, 'Oh my goodness, I'm about to give away an organ,'" Horan-Edwards said.
It all happened in the hospital rooms at Baylor Scott & White in Temple. Transplant Surgeon Dr. Tun Jie was able to be a part of it.
"We would love to see more of this happen because most of the time it's a very happy story," Jie said. "This is a family member helping each other and achieving a good result."
Now Horan-Edwards is left with just a scar but she's fully healed. The mark is a reminder of her love for her mom.
"I don't see it on a different scale as making breakfast for my mom in the morning," Horan-Edwards said. "It's just something that I would have done for her no matter what."
"She gave me another life," Mary Jane Horan smiled.
Horan is now following her dream of retiring to the Philippines. She plans to live a happy, simple life with her husband. She will come back to Central Texas for follow-up transplant care.
Stories like these are an important reminder of how crucial living donors are.
Jie says finding a perfect donor match takes time.
"Being a donor, you could say medically, they are Superman, Superwoman, because they are highly selective," Jie told 6 News. "We don't take that lightly. They are patients that we actually turn down for various reasons."
Most transplant matches come from donors who have died, which can lead to long wait times.
Typically, the best chance of a match is someone related to you, which is what happened in this case.
Jie says donors should expect to live a normal life and that donating will not affect your lifespan.
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