FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. (WXYZ) — A metro Detroit woman was able to give the gift of life to a man she met at the gym after she found out she was his perfect match.
The journey began inside The Hawk Fitness Center in Farmington Hills.
"I'm grateful," 72-year-old Johnny Fladger said. “It took me a while to quit crying about it.”
Fladger, an employee at The Hawk, had been on the transplant list about six years before meeting Alicia Ley, a member since the gym opened.
“I had a dream one night and I woke up and I had clearly just had surgery. My husband was there next to me and my first words to him were 'how’s Johnny,'" Alicia said.
Her dream slowly turned into a reality.
“After that dream, I started talking to Johnny and I told him about it, and that really opened up my mind and my heart to say, like, 'what if I’m a match for him? What if I’m right here in the same community, at the same gym, and the kidney he’s been waiting for is mine,'" Alicia said.
The successful transplant did not happen overnight, though.
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“It took over a year to go through testing, to talk to various medical professionals to see if that was even a possibility,” Alicia said.
The possibility for Alicia and Johnny to be a match was about 1 in 100,000 according to the National Kidney Foundation.
“It’s actually pretty tricky to be an exact match. There’s phases and stages that you have to go through," Alicia said.
Friday was Johnny’s first day back at the gym since his surgery on June 19.
He tells us he feels a lot better.
"There’s so many nice people here. I was anxious to come back to be around the people. They’re really nice and friendly. They all sent me cards and different things," Johnny said.
Johnny now calls Alicia his "sister."
“Regardless of what situation you’re in, there’s always hope," Johnny said.
Once strangers, the two are now connected forever.
“It’s quite profound how our relationships can go from nothing to impacting someone else’s life so deeply. On a level, we’re always connected, I mean, he has one of my organs in his body. We’ll always be connected that way as well," Alicia said.
