Submitted Photo
Katie Marsh, left, received a kidney from Allison Kwilos, right, despite the two never meeting prior to agreeing to the donation.
FORESTVILLE — Last year, Allison Kwilos and Katie Marsh both made dinner plans at Forestville’s Tavern on the Mall. Kwilos and her husband were sitting in the restaurant as Marsh walked in to pick up a takeout order.
Never has the decision to eat out had more of an impact on the lives of two strangers to one another.
Marsh walked in that night in need of a kidney, as her health was deteriorating following more than two years of dialysis after kidney failure. She had never met Kwilos prior to that night, but it was the first step toward a special bond the two will share forever.
“She saved my life,” Marsh said. “… She really is my hero.”
That evening, Tracy Hill, the owner of Tavern on the Mall, told Marsh, “I’m going to find you a kidney.” Marsh did not take her seriously after years of no luck in finding a donor.
“I had pretty much lost hope at that point that I was really going to get a kidney. I was getting sicker and sicker,” Marsh said.
Hill asked the patrons of her restaurant if anyone had the blood type O-positive. Kwilos, a first-grade teacher at Forestville Elementary School, said that she did. Hill then brought the two together to meet.
“Poor Katie just wanted to take her take-out and leave,” Kwilos joked.
After meeting Marsh and hearing of her dire need for a kidney, Kwilos didn’t think twice about what to do next. She offered to donate one of her kidneys.
Marsh said, “This complete stranger who I’ve never met, she doesn’t know me from anybody, she just said, ‘Yeah, I’ll do it.’”
Marsh was skeptical and hesitant to get her hopes up, but Kwilos continued to follow through at every step. Following their encounter, Kwilos spent several days trying to contact the right people to set up an appointment to get tested at ECMC in Buffalo. Through her testing, she learned that she had several genetic markers in common with Marsh, despite growing up states apart. Doctors said Marsh had more genetic markers in common with Kwilos than her own siblings.
Still, the process was not quick and easy at all. From all the tests to make sure a transplant can be successful to the time ECMC affords to consider the mental and emotional impact of such a major life choice, Kwilos said she would have donated much sooner if she could have.
“She went through so much aggravation and so many tests, had to meet with so many doctors and people, and she just kept at it,” Marsh said. “… She’s incredible.”
Kwilos, a member of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Fredonia, credited her faith as she explained her thought process through giving such an incredible gift.
“The whole time, I thought if this was really meant to be, it will happen. If it’s not, well at least I can go to bed knowing I did what I could,” Kwilos said. “It just kept moving forward, and I thought, ‘I guess we’re doing this.’”
Marsh recalled a time when Kwilos explained her decision to proceed with the donation. Kwilos told Marsh, “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I knew I could save your life and didn’t.”
Finally, this past May, Kwilos and Marsh received the thumbs up to proceed with a kidney transplant. Within two weeks of approval, the two were undergoing surgery. The procedure was completed May 20.
A few months later, things have dramatically improved for Marsh. She is much more active each day, interacting with her family instead of sleeping or laying around all day.
“I can finally be a mom. I can go back to work,” Marsh said.
The work she can return to, fittingly, is as a licensed practical nurse. She passed the necessary exams just prior to suffering from kidney failure and was not able to practice before getting her career started. In a recent check-up, Marsh was given the green light to start applying for jobs.
“The doctor told me to go live my life and be happy,” Marsh said. She was told, “This is your second chance in life, go live it.”
Marsh moved to Forestville in 2020 to take over her grandparents’ home as they remained in Florida. She is the mother of a Forestville High School student, Christopher Marsh, though he and Kwilos never crossed paths before this process.
“Every day before I met Allison, I had no hope. I thought, ‘This could be my last day.’ I was very down about life, and it’s like she fixed it. She’s so selfless, it’s incredible,” Marsh said.
Even through some negativity that Kwilos heard at times throughout the process from people who could not comprehend her decision, Kwilos never wavered. The potential of what could go wrong was not going to stop her from making the decision to help a fellow mother in her community.
“She’s just a mom, just like me. She just wants to watch her son grow up, like I want to watch my kids grow up,” Kwilos said. “What if the tables were turned? What if I was the one that was sick? I would want someone to help me.”
Kwilos now needs to consume more water on a daily basis now that she only has one kidney. Her remaining kidney will grow over the coming months as her body establishes what she defined as a “new normal.” Her life expectancy and quality of life, however, are not negatively impacted. If her remaining kidney does have any issues in the future, she will receive preference to receive a new kidney.
Kwilos missed four weeks of school due to the procedure, but returned for the final week of school to say goodbye to her students. She then taught summer school this past summer.
“The support that I got from the school was amazing. Any day I needed off, they said to just go, I made the appointments and they worked around it. Never, ever was it an issue. Same with the parents of my students, super supportive,” Kwilos said.
Marsh also credited the Forestville Central School District for its support of not only Kwilos, but also for her son, Christopher, through the process. The emotional toll of all that his mother was going through understandably took a toll on Christopher, but Marsh credited Brianne Hazelton, the High School Counselor, and Dan Grande, the High School Principal, for supporting her son through it all.
“It wasn’t just me living with kidney failure. It was all of the people around me that had to deal with the ups and downs,” Marsh said. “It was a roller coaster of emotions … and they went through all the emotions with me. It wasn’t just my kidney failure, it was everybody else’s kidney failure too.”
It was that reason that motivated Kwilos to help Marsh and her family by donating one of her kidneys.
“It didn’t just save me, it saved my son. It saved his mom,” Marsh said. “She gave life back to my family, and there is nothing I can ever do to repay her.”
After such a grand gesture, Marsh and her husband are both doing their part to pay it forward. Marsh’s husband, Alex, is looking to donate a kidney because of the hope he saw it bring back to his wife.
All of this came true because two Forestville women happened to pick the same restaurant for dinner one night a year ago.
“All from walking in to get food at the Tavern,” Marsh joked. “I’m glad I ordered food that night.”