When a woman marries, she’s generally showered with gifts. But one big-hearted bride recently decided it was better to give than to receive. In fact she gave the biggest gift of all—the gift of life.
Just two days after she’d taken her vows, Debby Neal-Strickland in Florida swapped her wedding dress for a hospital gown in order to donate a desperately needed kidney. The lucky recipient? Her brand-new husband’s former wife.
Debby and Jim Strickland have been a devoted couple for a decade. Throughout their courtship, Jim maintained a cordial relationship with his ex, Mylaen Merthe, raising their two kids amicably, and while Debby and Mylaen weren’t particularly close, they got along fine.
And that’s likely how the relationship would have remained until fate dictated otherwise.
Mylaen, who’d long suffered from kidney disease, took a turn for the worse at just about the same time she’d learned her daughter was pregnant with her first grandchild. Her kidneys were functioning at just 8% of normal capacity. Without a transplant, her odds of survival decreased every day.
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The hunt for a donor match was on. Mylaen’s brother wasn’t a viable candidate—but miraculously, Debby was.
For Debby, the thought of a child growing up not knowing its grandmother—of a daughter dealing with grief when she should be concentrating on the joys of new motherhood—wasn’t something she was willing to let happen if she could do anything to stop it.
Having lost a brother to cystic fibrosis while waiting for a lung transplant, she knew time was of the essence. With a green light on the tissue sample and blood tests, Debby willingly scheduled the life-saving surgery for just 48 hours after her nuptials.
“It was the most amazing day of my life, until two days later. That was also the most amazing day of my life,” Debby told Fox News.
Since the successful procedure, Mylaen and Debby have bonded and now refer to one another as “kidney sisters.” Mylaen is watching her new grandson Jackson grow up from the home she currently shares with her daughter and son-in-law, even as Debby and Jim’s family of six foster children and grandkids has expanded to include Mylaen and her brood in its loving embrace.
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And all thanks to a “gesture from the heart.”
“This is what the world is about. Family. We need to stick together,” Mylaen told FOX. “She saved my life.”
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A whole new dimension to the notion of “Sister Wives”.