A group of best friends in Orange County are now physically connected by sharing kidneys.
Debbie Thompson and Christine Morales have been friends since 3rd qualification. After going through elementary, middle, and high school together, the duo even shared an apartment together.
Their lives continued to mirror each other’s into adulthood when Christine married her husband, Ron, in the early 1908s, just a year before Debbie married her husband, Brad. The Thompsons have three sons and a daughter as do the Morales family.
“Her family is my family,” Debbie Thompson describes. “Union is all the time to this day. Inseparable to this day.”
Even a health crisis couldn’t break the bond of best friends. When Christine suffered kidney failure in 2015, she told Debbie that she needed a kidney transplant.
“I told Debbie it’s time [to get a kidney transplant]”, recalls Cristina Morales. “Then she said, ‘I’ll give you my kidney.’ So. Debbie never wavered.”
7 years after Christine received a kidney from Debbie through operations at Cedar Sinai, Ron Morales also had kidney failure. After almost losing him a couple of times, this time another member of the Thompson family showed up: Brad, Debbie’s husband.
“[Ron] I needed it and I had a spare,” says Brad Thompson nonchalantly. “I said he can have it.”
After the second kidney surgery between the two families, the two patriarchs say they feel better than before. And best friends have a greater appreciation for each other.
“We are one now. Two couples turned into one”, explains Christine through tears. “[The Thompsons] saved our lives. They gave us our second chance. They don’t understand how much we appreciate and love them to death.”
The Thompsons say there was no reason to hesitate in giving their kidneys to Christine and Ron.
“Just seeing their lives go back to normal for them really means a lot to me,” says Debbie.
“I’m happy that everything went well,” adds Brad. “It was nothing to me.”
The two couples hope their stories can encourage others to give “a gift of life” and donate organs to others because they say “nothing has changed” since the transplant operations.
“I feel stronger and better than I used to be,” says Brad.
“I took some weight off you,” Ron replies jokingly and laughs.
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