Texas teacher giving student the gift of life
NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas (KTVU and Wires) – There are many lessons elementary school teachers try to pass on to their students, but none as important as the one being taught to the first-graders at Hoffmann Elementary School.
Their classmate -- Matthew Parker – desperately needs a life-saving kidney transplant.
The 6-year-old's kidneys began failing when he was just three weeks old and after his body rejected one transplanted kidney, the doctors at University Transplant Center in San Antonio gave him a 1 percent chance of finding a second donor.
The direness of his situation was not lost on his teacher -- Lindsey Painter.
So when a call for potential donors went out, Painter was one of the 80 people who responded. A short time later she got the news – she was a perfect match.
Without a second thought, Painter agreed to donate one of her kidneys to help Matthew.
"So many people came forward trying to help him and I'm the one that gets to do it," she said. "I mean I feel very lucky."
Her co-workers have donated their earnings to make up for the income she will lose after undergoing the procedure. Both should be fully recovered in a couple of months.
Next month, doctors will remove one of Painter's kidneys and transplant it into Parker. For Matthew, who is on dialysis three days a week and at school two days a week, it means that by the end of the spring he should be able to go back to school full-time.