Texas Teacher Will Donate a Kidney to 6-Year-Old Student

An elementary teacher from Texas has agreed to donate one of her kidneys to a six-year-old student who has been in need of a donor for two years.

Doctors told Matthew Parker’s family there was only a 1% chance of finding a suitable donor for Matthew because his body had rejected a previous transplant. But his teacher, Lindsey Painter, got tested after his physicians released a public plea for donors. Remarkably, doctors said she was the “perfect match.”

“When it came back that I was a match, it was shocking,” Painter told KVUE, a Texas ABC affiliate. “It did take a while to wrap my head around it, to think that I can do this, I can still live a normal life…and I get to make this amazing difference in Matthew’s life.”

Matthew can only go to school twice a week, driving down to San Antonio on the three other days for dialysis treatments. Once he gets a functional kidney, doctors expect he will make a full recovery and be ready to live a normal life. He and Painter will undergo surgery in mid-March.

[KVUE]