Natisha Fudge, a former Metro Detroit certified nursing assistant, contracted Covid in May while working at a nursing home. Then she passed it to her husband Christopher, who already has serious kidney disease. The virus complicated matters.
Now, the mother of three has decided to give a kidney to gher spouse of 17 years, Victor Williams of WDIV reports.
“Finding out that his blood type was O-positive and my blood type was O-negative. I said it was only fate because only O can donate to O,” Fudge tells the station.
In order to give the kidney, she has to lose weight. So far she's shed more than 40 pounds.
“To know that I’m gonna have my best friend and partner with me even longer in life, it feels amazing,” she said.
A GoFundMe page is set up to help defray medical costs. As of Monday night, they raised over $2,200 from 43 donors.
"The reason why we are telling our story is to get the needed help to pay for medical expenses that our insurance wont pay for and because we won't be able to work for at least a month or two," she writes on the donation site. "We still need to be able to provide for our kids, buy food, medications, pay our bills and rent."
"One of of my goals was to be tested to see if I was a possible match for my husband to receive a kidney, I was scared to find out for so long and the only way to find out was to loose weight," she writes. "Now that I am back on track, I was able to take the test to find out and now that I can, being able to give him a kidney only feels right and means so much to me."
They hope to have the transplant at Ascension St. John Hospital in Detroit by October.