Health & Fitness
Watch: How Do You Say 'Happy Birthday' to a 100-Year-Old Kidney? 'Thanks, Dad'
Against medical odds, a southeast Michigan woman received an incredible gift from her father 42 years ago.
![](https://patch.com/img/cdn/users/790386/2015/04/raw/2015045541a7c5b8d35.png)
Angie Done, 66, credits her dad with giving her life, not just once but twice. (Screenshot and video via the Detroit Free Press)
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Angie Done’s kidney had a birthday – a big milestone birthday – the other day, but she didn’t.
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The 66-year-old Troy woman told the Detroit Free Press her kidneys failed when she was 24. Without a new kidney, she was looking at a lifetime of hemodialysis, a process that cleans and removes urine from blood.
“ … At the time, hemodialysis was not as sophisticated as it is now,” Done said, explaining the equipment resembled big Lady Kenmore washing machines. After about a dozen treatments, her doctors began looking for a donor.
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Done’s father, Dominic Presty, was the first to volunteer. He was 58 at the time, and his daughter’s doctors at Detroit’s Mt. Carmel Mercy Hospital said that was too old to donate.
“My father and I were always very, very close,” she explained. “We were a very close-knit, Italian-American family. And my father was devastated when he found out my kidneys were down. And he offered to be tested for transplantation. They said ... ‘You’re 58 years old. That’s really doubtful.’”
But Presty was “bound and determined to donate,” and doctors decided to “humor” him by testing him, Done said.
“ And the rest is history,” she said. “They found him to be in perfect health. No high blood pressure, nothing. And an extremely good match.”
The kidney is 100 years old now, still going strong. Done takes only a low-dosage anti-rejection maintenance drug.
» Here’s how to become an organ, eye and tissue donor in Michigan.
Done said it may not be the oldest living transplanted organ in the world, but it’s among one of the oldest.
The oldest mainly result from twin-to-twin matches, she said, especially among identical twins. “I don’t know any more statistics,” she said. “ I do think I’m probably one of the oldest-surviving for the times.”
Done credits her father, who died 18 years ago at the age of 76, with giving her a miracle.
“You might say he gave me life,” she said. “My mom and dad gave me life twice.”
Watch the Detroit Free Press video below.
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