When 24-year-old Ronald Perry unexpectedly passed away from a stroke earlier this month, he left his mother one last, life-saving gift.
Rose Perry, who suffers from kidney failure, was filled with disbelief and grief over her son’s sudden death.
Ronald Perry collapsed in his kitchen in early May and was rushed to a hospital in Illinois where he underwent surgery and was placed in a medically induced coma. Perry, who doctors say had a subarachnoid hemorrhage, a type of stroke caused by bleeding in the area surrounding the brain, never recovered and passed away on May 16.
Before her son’s death, Rose Perry was in the process of registering with the kidney transplant wait list after learning in August 2014 that her kidneys were failing.
Faced with a difficult decision after Ronald Perry’s death, his father and brother asked that his kidney be used to save his mother’s life.
“I didn’t want to take it at first,” Rose Perry said, according to a press release from Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, Illinois. “I didn’t want people thinking that I wanted this tragedy to happen so I could get his kidney. But, my husband and younger son encouraged me to undergo the transplant since Ronald would have wanted me to.”
A day after her son’s death, doctors determined the kidney was a match and Rose Perry went into surgery. The transplant likely doubled her lifespan, doctors said.
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“Ronald saved many lives through organ donation, so something good has come of his tragic demise at an early age,” Deepak Mital, surgical director of the Kidney Transplant Program at Advocate Christ Medical Center, said in a statement. “Directed donation made it possible for his mother to receive the gift of life, and he was a good son to the end.”
Rose Perry said the transplant has helped her deal with her loss.
“This is an emotionally difficult time for me and my family as both my sons are the most precious things in my life,” she said. "I find peace in the fact that Ronald has given me a new life and is helping me live.”
