A Minnesota woman donated one of her kidneys to her ex-husband despite being divorced from him for years.
Mary Zeigler and Bill Henrichs started dating in middle school and got married at age 18.
They stayed together for 24 years but ultimately divorced, while their children were just 8 and 5 respectively. They vowed to stay cordial for the sake of their children.
Henrichs remarried within a few years to his second wife, Linda, who had two daughters from a previous marriage. The trio worked together on parenting the brood.
“That pretty much sums it up. That he never left our family and Linda joined it,” Zeigler told Fox 9.
“I trust them both. I trust after so many years of getting along working through it I know that there’s not gonna be any strange issues. We’ll just get together and get it done,” added Henrichs.
In February, Henrichs found out he needed a kidney transplant and Zeigler offered one of her kidneys.
“Things were just starting to point my direction … and sent the first round of bloodwork down and not only were we a good match but they said we shared some antigens,” Zeigler said.
“You know for me it wasn’t even a decision. You know it was kinda like him calling up and saying can you come over and help us rake leaves. That’s how I think of it,” she said.
She said her children were proud of her. She added, “If this story changes one person’s actions or attitude towards their ex it’ll be all worth it.”
Kidney Donations
Some 114,000 people were on the national transplant waiting list as of August 2017, and 20 people die each day waiting for a transplant, according to the Department of Health & Human Services. A person is added to the waiting list every 10 minutes.
In 2017, 34,770 transplants were performed, setting a new record for the fifth consecutive year.
The vast majority of transplants were kidney transplants, with 19,484 performed.
The second most common transplant was liver transplants with around 8,000 done and heart transplants with about 3,200 done.
Report: Top Chinese Doctors Admit to Harvesting Organs
A new round of chilling phone calls reveals that live organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners continues in China at a variety of leading transplant centers in different regions of the country, according to a recent report.
The conversations, with doctors from 12 transplant hospitals in China, also show that this “business” has become “normal” at these facilities: None of the doctors—all leading figures in organ transplantation in China—showed surprise, dismay, or anger when asked “whether the organs are harvested from Falun Gong practitioners.”
The calls are the latest research documenting forced organ harvesting in China, which developed as part of the persecution of the spiritual practice of Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa.
A transcript from one call reads: “I have another [question]. You are using Falun Gong practitioners as the donors, that is, those healthy donors, right?”
“Definitely healthy. How can it be acceptable if they’re not healthy?!”
