A sacrifice for a loving soulmate
Deseret News 29Nov99 P2
By Lois M. Collins: Deseret News staff writer

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH -- In an unusual surgical procedure this week, LDS Church member Mary Lynn Lewis will donate one of her kidneys to her husband, Greg Lewis. The procedure is unusual because husbands and wives usually don't match genetically for such donations. Only three percent of kidney transplants are from spouse to spouse.

Greg Lewis, 49, was first diagnosed with kidney problems after a bout with the flu in 1990. Kidney problems appear to run in his family, as both his mother and his brother have had kidney disorders. When it became obvious that he was going to have to have a transplant in order to save his life, Mary Lynn offered one of hers. Doctors told them that the chances of her kidneys matching his were very slight, but she wanted to be typed and tested anyway. The two people were, indeed, a good match.

Doctors may have been surprised, but Greg Lewis wasn't. Over the course of their 26-year marriage, the two have proved to be very alike in many ways. Even their prescriptions for eye glasses are the same.