Get the tissues ready, because this is the most uplifting story you’re going to hear all week.
Emily Gatlin was living every patient’s worst nightmare. With her condition getting worse, doctors told her that an immediate organ transplant was her only hope. To put it simply, she needed a miracle. So when Dan Weaver, a man whom Emily had never even met, donated a portion of his liver to save the young mom’s life, she was so thankful that she repaid the stranger by giving him her kidneys.
Faith in humanity restored!
Emily’s selflessness touched Dan so deeply that as soon as he recovered, he decided to do something amazing: Dan donated his heart to Emily, a gesture that she vowed to repay—and did—by giving Dan her lungs. And that’s when something truly amazing happened: On hearing the news, Dan immediately made arrangements to graft a section of skin from his lower back and buttocks to Emily, should she ever have a need for it.
Wow! Truly, this proves that the more you give, the more it comes back to you.
Whether it was Emily giving Dan a bone marrow transplant or Dan saying thanks with a simple pint of blood, every donation was followed by another tremendous act of kindness. In one instance, Dan woke up to discover that he had his original kidneys back, plus one of Emily’s corneas, and reciprocated her generosity weeks later by giving her a section of his lower intestines.
Incredible.
Time will tell what the future holds, but here’s hoping Dan and Emily remember each other forever. At the very least, count us among the many who are rooting for the pair to finally meet face to face. If not right away, then possibly in six months when Emily is scheduled to donate her molars to Dan as a token of her appreciation.
