22-Year-Old Ohio Man Donates Kidney to Childhood Friend
Allison Rees has been waiting for a healthy kidney for four years. The 23-year-old was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease when she was 15 and has been on the wait-list, patiently on standby for over a thousand days.
The severity of Allison's condition required she stay home to be able to attend routine doctor visits. This prevented her from going away for college, and so she enrolled at a local college. While staying in her hometown, she reconnected with Jacob Bleil, 23, who learned more about her condition.
Jacob would go on to spend an entire year secretly undergoing tests to see if his kidney was a match.
And last year, he discovered it was.
Every year, the pair give each other Christmas presents so, as a belated gift, Jacob surprised his best friend with a letter saying that she would be getting a new kidney. He captured the heartwarming moment on video.
"Jake!" she exclaimed reading the letter. "I knew it was you."
"I was just getting my driver's license in a few months, I was just looking forward to normal things," Rees told Inside Edition Digital. "I had specifically told him that I did not want my friends to get tested."
"I never even donated blood so it was quite the way to jump in," Bleil told Inside Edition Digital.
Since the two childhood best friends are now sharing an organ, could they be more than friends in the future?
Only time will tell.
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