It's a new year and with it comes new hope for Harlingen man John Curry. Finding a kidney for his father, John A. Curry, and add another year to his life, is at the top of his resolutions list.
"I would like for somebody - an angel from God to come forward, and that's what I’ve been looking for on Facebook, or anywhere I can get out there and put out the message,” Curry said.
“God has many angels and I’d like just one of them to come forward with his blood type ‘O’ negative."
Curry said he and his siblings ironically don't match-up to his father's blood type, or meet the other requirements needed in order to donate a kidney to his father.
"I just went from one side of the spectrum of where, I couldn't donate, and went the other way, to I’m going to find someone," he said.
Curry's father has no choice but to wait on a transplant donor list. Meanwhile, he goes to dialysis three times a week, for nearly five hours a day.
Curry said it's been a four year devastating wait for the entire family.
"I can’t pay him back for my life, so it'd just be a small way of me paying him back, helping him," a tearful Curry said.
Traditionally, people donate organs once they pass, but Curry said people don’t have to wait until then to help save lives, including his father’s.
He's hoping a live donor will come forth to donate the kidney he desperately needs.
"There's hundreds of thousands of people waiting and (about)18 people die each day waiting, when there's hundreds of us that can donate and can go on living a healthy life," Curry said.
The live donor list is something many people are misinformed or know nothing about, Curry said, but he's encouraging people to open their minds and educate themselves about the opportunity to give someone a second chance at life.
"If God's will is for him to leave us, then that is the will,” Curry said.
“But if we're able to help (my father) and find an angel out there to donate a kidney, and prolong his life so he can be with his grandkids, and be with us, and teach me and my brother things that we haven't been taught yet, that's a gift."
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