Fremont woman donates kidney to ailing parent
FREMONT - Mike Green sat in the stands at Fremont Ross High School on Aug. 25 and watched the football team's opening night victory over visiting Springfield High School.
In the third quarter of the game, a non-sports-related message flashed across the scoreboard at Don Paul Stadium.
"Dad, I'm A Match. Love, Your Baby Girl," the message read.
The message was directed at Green, who had been diagnosed with kidney failure, and sent by his daughter, Patti Ollom.
Green knew his daughter had gone through testing to see if she could donate one of her kidneys to him.
The scoreboard announced the good news, and four months later Ollom donated one of her kidneys to her father in a successful transplant surgery.
"It doesn't surprise me that she wanted to do it," Green said this week of his daughter, a nurse at The Bellevue Hospital.
Green, 65, a retired union representative for the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, said he started to really feel the effects from his chronic diabetes about two years ago.
The Fremont resident got tired often and couldn't do the things he used to, Green said.
He received a diagnosis of his kidney failure in January 2017, saying it was caused by his diabetes, and shortly after got onto a transplant list.
"My daughter found out about it and she was bound and determined to be my donor," Green said.
Ollom said she initially was angry at her father for not telling her and others sooner about his health issues.
"It actually took me about three days to call him," Ollom said, after she heard about his diagnosis.
The father and daughter talked. Ollom said she told Green she needed him and wasn't ready to lose him.
They went to the Cleveland Clinic in February for a day of testing.
In July, Ollom got approval to start the process to see if she was a match and able to donate a kidney to her father.
"He gave me life and now I've returned the favor, so to speak," Ollom said.
Green jokingly calls his Dec. 13 transplant surgery a "father-daughter date." The surgery took about five hours.
Ollom said as a result of the surgery she has to follow precautions, take certain medications and stay active.
"I have to make sure I stay hydrated. I only have one kidney," she said.
Initially, Green's body had a hard time keeping up with the new kidney that was more than 20 years younger than him.
He said he was getting dehydrated and not putting enough fluids into his body.
Now, five weeks removed from the December surgery, Green said the hydration issue amounted to just a hiccup on his road to recovery.
He said he feels better, although he has to be careful due to lowered immunities following the transplant.
Fathers are always trying to be their daughters' heroes, Green said, but now his perspective has changed.
"By gosh, she's my hero," Green said.
dacarson@gannett.com
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Twitter: @DanielCarson7