MANITOWOC, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Ron Hinz’s family and friends gathered on Sunday afternoon for a party in Manitowoc.
“I always get emotional when I start thinking about what went on,” Hinz said.
“I’m pretty emotional, I’m trying to hold together right now,” Pam Resnick added.
But they weren’t celebrating a birthday or a recent graduation. It’s been a decade since Pam donated a kidney to her uncle Ron.
“I may have gotten a kidney off the list, but even if I did it would not have been as good a match as my niece’s, because she is obviously a blood relative.”
Before Pam, Ron tells FOX 11 he had two other potential donors. However, both fell through, with the second being called off one week before the surgery.
“I was pretty despondent… I think it took me a week to even call Pam.”
Pam telling FOX 11 it is a highlight of her life, to be able to save someone else’s life.
“My husband and I never had kids, and I think for a woman to give life is something that we just like to do.”
Without the kidney, the family says there have been weddings and grandchildren that Ron would have missed.
“I had a condition… my kidneys had failed, I was in end-stage renal disease, and I was actually on dialysis for about 3 months,” Hinz said. “So had it not been for dialysis I would’ve died back somewhere in the spring of 2010.”
Sunday’s party was a party without gifts or presents.
“In lieu of gifts they can make a donation to the National Kidney Foundation of Wisconsin,” Hinz said.
Resnick says they hope to encourage other people to consider donating life, if they’re able to.
“It’s a legacy that I leave behind forever, for eternity. I would absolutely do it again if I could, if I had more kidneys to give I would do it.”
Ron says their party ended up raising $425 on Sunday for the National Kidney Foundation of Wisconsin. If you would like to donate to the National Kidney Foundation of Wisconsin, please click here.
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