When a Friend Becomes a Donor


Luke Thiboutot and Ryan Conner were roommates when they were freshmen in college, where they both studied architecture. Now in their 30s, they've stayed close. Last year, their friendship took a remarkable turn: Ryan donated a kidney so Luke could live a healthy life.

Every Friday at this time we turn to StoryCorps. It's an oral history project that gives families and friends a chance to talk with each other.

Luke Thiboutot and Ryan Conner were roommates while freshmen in college. They stayed close, and now they're in their 30s. Last year their friendship took a remarkable turn and they stepped into a StoryCorps Booth to talk about it. Luke begins their story.

Dell was diagnosed with kidney failure. Um, you stayed late at the hospital. And that was the first time you offered, to be the donor. And it's the one question that I would ask you, but the decision seemed really easy to you or else, wondering if you could tell me about that.

Ah, the decision at the time was made in haste in a sense that I didn't know much about renal failure or kidney transplants. However, I was the match. In fact, for me the worst part was not the medical portion of it or the pain in suffering really that stuff. It's the worry or that guilt that you carry in doing something that could really have a serious negative impact on your family.

Um, you know, I, I, we went to the whole process of the testing and stuffing. I never had really sort of thanked you, (it) was towards the end we were going for a last test that I said, you know, I want you know how much I thank, you know, thank you for this. It's a big deal and you said don't worry, we're gonna get through it.

I'd like to tell one story.

Go.

It's the moment that it really hit me like what we had done, you know, medically what we had done. Yet a piece of you out of your body and put into me, but we had been given the Yankee's Red sox tickets by a friend of us. It was sort of a get-well gift.
And we were atthe Redsox Yankee's game and we had used the bathroom. And um, you know, it was we were standing there I started getting off feel philosophical and I realized that everything going on here is essentially the result of your kidneys. It was no longer my body working, it was your body working.
And I started to like emotional and choked up. I sort, I sort of lookover you. You know, your head's tilted back and your mouth opened and you were staring at the ceiling.
And I've known you for 16 years and I know what's going to your head. You are sort of counting the beers. You count , you were counting the number of beers you've had that day. You were calculating how many you should've should not have before the 7 Day and thenit closed up. But you know, I sort of had this epiphany, the magnitude of what we did. And again, you know, all along you sort of acted like this wasn't an enormous. Then, and you didn't end either. It's hard to think about.

I am glad we'd done.

Ryan Conner and Luke Thiboutot, at StoryCorps in Boston. Their conversations and all StoryCorps recordings are archived to the library of Congress and you can learn how you can record an interview with npr.org.

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