Nashville, TN (WSMV) — Some say Facebook friend lists are made up of people not very close at all, but all it took was a status update for a grade school classmate to step up and save a woman’s life.
A woman has just left Vanderbilt after a successful kidney transplant all thanks to a Facebook friendship.
“She could’ve spent yesterday having Thanksgiving with her family, but she sat in a room trying to get over nausea, headache and terrible pains to help me,” said kidney recipient Melanie Moore.
A diabetic, Moore was told five years ago she was in kidney failure.
“My surgeon told me, ‘You’ve got to find a donor,'” said Moore. “‘You may not have the 4 1/2 years it’s going to take to be on the list.'”
Moore posted her search for that donor as a status on Facebook. Former classmate Latrice Sharpe, who hadn’t seen Moore in person for years, clicked to reply.
“She said, ‘I don’t want you to think I’m crazy, but two years ago God told me I would be donating something to somebody and saving their life,'” said Moore. “She said, ‘I struggled with it for two years wondering who that could be, and I think it’s you.'”
“I’ve been called angel and hero, and I don’t really see myself as that,” said Sharpe. “I saw where I could actually make a difference.”
The kidney transplant at Vanderbilt was a success, and Moore stopped by the hospital room down the hall to lock Sharpe in an embrace before she left.
“You are a great person,” Moore told Sharpe. “Your family’s lucky to have you, and I’m so lucky to have you. You mean the world to me.”
“This has been the best Thanksgiving ever, and she’s the most precious gift,” said Moore.
