We all know our parents will do anything for us, never expecting anything in return. But sometimes, a parent’s need is so great, that even if they say they can handle it on their own, we have to step in and be the one to do anything for them. So when Delayne Ivanowski’s father, John, refused to let her help him, even though it meant he could die, she did what any good kid would do: she ignored him.
John suffers from immunoglobulin A (IgA) deficiency. The disease means that his immune system, which is supposed to keep him safe, was instead attacking his kidneys. Delayne, 25, had seen her father spend hours every day on a dialysis machine. She knew she had to help him.
But her father wouldn’t let her. John told CBS News that he told his daughter, “I’m like, ‘You’re too young, you’ve got a long time to be here and my time’s limited’,” he said. There was also a deeper reason for John to want his daughter to stay safe. Her brother, John’s only son, had died nearly 16 years ago from cancer.
I thought, I lost my boy and if anything happened to Delayne, I don’t know what I would do,” he said.
Delayne couldn’t accept that. “He likes to walk my dog and run with my dog and he wants to do all this stuff, but now he’s hooked up to a machine,” she said. “I don’t think that’s any way that anybody should have to live. “So ultimately, she made the decision to donate her kidney to her dad, but in secret.
Delayne Ivanowski reveals to her father that she had donated her kidney to him. John had not known who his donor was until this moment. Photo from TikTok
“I was like, ‘I’m going to do it. I don’t care how mad he is at me. I don’t care if he kicks me out of the house or hates me or doesn’t say a word to me for the rest of my life,'” she said. “At least he’ll be living a good life and not hooked up to a machine.” When John got the phone call telling him a donor was found, he had no clue who was behind it. “They called me at work and said, ‘We’ve got an anonymous donor,’ and I about dropped the phone and thought are you kidding me?,” he said.
On the day of the transplant, John’s surgeon, Dr. Jason Wellen said that everyone made sure to keep the father and daughter away from one another, prior to the surgery. “We had to figure out how to put them in separate areas of the pre-op area and how to make it so they didn’t see each other in the post-op area and make sure that they were in different parts of the floor until she was ready to let him know that she was the donor,” Wellen said.
After the successful surgery and recovery, John was still unaware that she was his donor. In a now-viral TikTok, Delayne revealed what she had done by walking into his room in a matching hospital gown.
I knew right away,” he said. “I was upset. I was just in shock. I looked at my wife and was like, ‘Are you kidding me?'”
John says he will be on anti-rejection medicines for the rest of his life, but has been able to stop dialysis. He said that his initial anger, fear and shock has gone away, and now, “I wouldn’t change a thing. I feel so much better.” According to Dr. Wellen, John could have remained on the transplant list for years, before a compatible kidney was found.
“There are over 100,000 people in the country right now waiting for a kidney transplant,” he said. “The one way we can get people transplanted within a few months is if they come to us with a living donor.” Watch the heartwarming moment between Delayne and her father, below.
