Aug 24, 2018 3 min read

Rich Lynch said it is “gratifying” to donate an organ to a sibling, as he did for his older sister Kathleen Lynch in late June.

But that doesn’t mean the decision was easy.

“I hesitated to raise my hand,” said Rich of Upper St. Clair. “Candidly, I was afraid.”

Rich, 63, was fearful of the long-term implications of donating a kidney. But after about two years of waiting for Kathleen and one year of tests for Rich, Kathleen has a new kidney.

“Having done it now, it is very gratifying,” Rich said. “She’s a good person, and she’s always been a very giving person.”

About two years ago, Kathleen, who recently retired after 40 years as an administrator in the Ringgold School District, was told by doctors that she was losing function of her kidney and would either need a new kidney or she would have to go on dialysis. She was scared that she wouldn’t be able to find a suitable donor in time before she had to start dialysis.

Kathleen, now 66, and Rich grew up in a big family in Donora, so Kathleen had several siblings and other relatives who could donate a kidney. Their sister, Martha, started rallying up family members to undergo testing to determine if they would be suitable donors.

Three of Kathleen’s siblings went through the extensive testing, which takes several months of EKGs, EEGs, CT scans, X-rays and many other tests.

“They test you everywhere you can possibly imagine,” Rich said.

While Rich thought it was unlikely he’d be summoned to donate the kidney, Martha urged him to go through the testing, just in case.

“I prayed about it and decided to do it,” he said. “As it played out, the only one that made it through all the testing was me.”

Once Rich found out that he was the only suitable donor, Kathleen knew the others were unable to donate.

“I hadn’t told Kathleen that I was going to testing,” Rich said. “She had resigned to the fact that she was going to have to go on dialysis. We were racing the clock hoping that we could find a suitable donor and have the transplant take place before she had to start dialysis. We literally just made it.”

“(It means) the world,” Kathleen said about Rich donating his kidney. “My family’s support was a real godsend.”