For the first time in a long time, Linda Deming will be able to eat a banana again.
Deming, 66, of Pownal, has been on dialysis for the past 14 months, during which time she made pleas – on roadside signs, car windows and Facebook – for a new kidney.
Her call was answered by more people than she could have imagined, all strangers willing to give up an organ to save her life.
Luckily, one of them was Amber McIntyre, a 37-year-old mother from Kenduskeag who wanted to set a good example for her sons.
The women and their husbands met face to face for the first time Monday. On Tuesday, they each underwent surgery at Maine Medical Center in Portland and, right way, doctors could tell the transplant was a success.
“She’s doing well,” said Ian Deming, about an hour after his wife was allowed to return to her hospital room Tuesday evening.
In a best-case scenario, he said, she’ll be able to leave the hospital by Friday, though she’ll have to return to the transplant center three times a week for a month. But, he said, that’s much better than three hours of dialysis three times a week.
Plus, she can ditch the low-phosphorous diet required of people with kidney disease.
Asked what she was most excited to be able to do after the transplant, Deming said she was looking forward to eating bananas and baked potatoes again. She can start that Wednesday.
“Today’s clear liquids only,” her husband said.
Meanwhile, McIntyre had been released to her room a few hours earlier and was also recovering well.
The successful transplant comes just six months after Deming started her quest for a new kidney — about three years quicker than the average recipient waits.
The National Kidney Foundation website says 4,761 people in the United States died while waiting for a transplant in 2014.
Fearful of the odds and tired of dialysis, Deming, who had end-stage renal failure, took matters into her own hands.
She started asking for a kidney donation on roadside signs she put up in Pownal and Freeport in September. She also placed messages in the windows of her car and created a Facebook page, called “A Kidney for Linda.”
After her unusual plea caught the attention of media outlets last fall, Deming started receiving transplant offers from across the country.
More than 50 potential donors filled out health screening packets before her doctors narrowed the field of acceptable candidates.
Two donors were deemed acceptable, a woman from South Portland and McIntyre.
Although the other woman would have been ready for the surgery sooner, doctors felt McIntyre was a better match, and the transplant was approved on Feb. 18.
“It has been a long 14 months waiting for this,” Deming said in an interview before the surgery. “I didn’t believe it was going to happen. All I had was hope.”
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