He wanted to give his wife a new life and was ready to do what it takes.
Editor's Note: This article was originally published on November 29, 2019.
When we exchange the holy wedding vows which consist of being there with each other through sickness and health, in addition to others, we try to live up to them to the best of our abilities. But there are some among us who live to uphold those vows, come what may. They live in their marriage and know that their life will never be as they want it to be without the happy existence of their significant other.
A 74-year-old man from Utah has proven that love can take you places, literally! Wayne Winters traveled for miles every day near his home in Utah, wearing a sandwich board reading: "Need kidney 4 wife," reports PEOPLE.
He is married to his wife Deanne Winters for 26 years and was desperate to find a kidney for her as she was diagnosed with kidney failure. “My wife has stage 5 kidney failure,” Winters told FOX 13. “She’s on dialysis and she doesn’t like it, it’s horrible.”
Finding a donor is no small feat — there are 3,000 new patients added to the kidney donor waiting list each month, and 13 people die every day while waiting for their chance, according to the National Kidney Foundation.
It is also noteworthy that waiting for at least three years for a kidney is not uncommon. But Wayne was tired of waiting and wanted to act. Therefore, he took on a ritual wherein he would walk miles by the side of busy roads, never caring about the weather, obstacles, etc., wearing the sandwich board, every day. He did this for two years before people started taking notice of him and his story.
One day, after two years of his hustle, he finally received a call in 2017 from a hospital informing him that there is a kidney available. "I was just so overwhelmed," he said of the call he received from the hospital. "I didn’t know what to think," quotes PEOPLE.
After his story went viral, hundreds contacted him. “Between seven to 800 [calls], it filled my phone up,” he said. “I’m sitting here with this full phone.”
However, despite the many offers to him through his solo movement, his wife's kidney came from an organ donor who had passed away. The new kidney will bring them a few more years of togetherness for which Wayne was so desperate and was ready to fight any odds.
He told Fox13, "After I get a kidney, I will have my wife back. The way she was normally - helping people, loving people..."
He went on to add, “If she can give a good five years that would be awesome, we can have our life back,” Winters said. But he is not done yet! He does not want to stop his revolution. He now plans on continuing his revolution for other people who are in dire need of kidneys.
“I will spend more of my days walking with my sign to see how many I can get,” he said. “Think about it, we could start a kidney revolution and that would be so great.”
References:
https://www.kidney.org/news/newsroom/factsheets/Organ-Donation-and-Transplantation-Stats
https://people.com/human-interest/husband-who-walked-miles-for-wife-finds-donor/
