Florida man recipient of two living kidney donations, one from wife

DUNEDIN, Fla. (WFLA) — Ray Rodriguez remembers the day he asked Lori’s father for his blessing to marry her like it was yesterday.

“I asked her father for her hand,” Ray said. “It was like, whoa. I was sweating bullets.”

On Valentine’s Day of 1983, Ray proposed, and the two were married six months later. But this isn’t just a love story.

“April 1 of 1988, April Fool,” Ray recalled. “It was my first day I had to go into the emergency room.”

Ray, a military veteran, said he picked up a virus in his time overseas, which gave him kidney disease. He went on dialysis shortly after the ER visit. But Lori went and got tested and found she was a match and could give Ray one of her kidneys, so after 13 months of dialysis, they completed the living donation.

Lori’s kidney lasted in Ray about 18 more years, until his numbers got worse again. So, Ray went back on dialysis, this time for four years. As the pair tried to find another donor, they put up yard signs, painted their car and decorated shirts, pleading for a kidney donation.

“We did a podcast, and I got a phone call the next day,” Lori remembered. “It was John, and he got tested and we’re here.”

An altruistic stranger became Ray’s second living donor.

“I’m so blessed. Every day is a gift,” said Ray. “The doctors are amazed I’m still alive and fighting, tell you that.”

According to the LinkLink Foundation, about 17 people in the U.S. die every day because there aren’t enough organ donors.

“Currently, there’s about 100,000 people across the country who are on the national waitlist that are in need of an organ transplant,” said LifeLink’s Ashley Moore.

LifeLink works with families and hospitals to recover organs across the west coast of Florida.

“In Florida, we are actually very fortunate here,” Moore explained. “We have about 11.3 million people registered to donate, which is wonderful. But the fact is, we still don’t have enough.”

Wednesday, in addition to Valentine’s Day, is also National Donor Day. The holiday is meant to bring awareness to the need for organ donors, something Ray and Lori know all too well.

If you’d like to become an organ donor, you can sign up or learn more here, or go to your local DMV.