Camden couple participates in country-wide kidney swap

Courier Post | Kim Mulford
Photo: Camden residents Orlando and Betty Gonzalez participated in a donor chain involving 20 people and 10 hospitals from coast to coast. Orlando received a new kidney from a donor in California, while Betty donated her kidney to a patient in central Pennsylvania. Their surgeries were performed at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center in Camden. / John Ziomek/Courier-PostCAMDEN â€" It took a long time for Betty Gonzalez to talk her husband into the complicated plan to get him a new kidney.

After 4½ years of receiving dialysis treatments three times a week, Orlando Gonzalez was wearing out. The 50-year-old had to stop working. His skin had taken on a grayish color â€" he looked like a zombie, he joked.

Still, when Betty offered to donate her own kidney to him, he balked.

“I said I didn’t want her to do it, because I didn’t want anything to happen to her,” said Orlando, a former medical transport driver who also worked in the maintenance department at the Cherry Hill Mall.

His 37-year-old wife persisted. When it turned out she wasn’t a match for Orlando, the transplant team at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center explained there was a way to make it work. Betty could donate her kidney to a stranger, as part of a paired kidney exchange.
______________________________________________________ 
"You have the power to SAVE lives." 
To register as a donor TODAY
In California: 
www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org | www.doneVIDAcalifornia.org 
Outside California: 
www.organdonor.gov | www.donatelife.net

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