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ASHLAND Tom Adams, a retired paramedic and director from Boyd EMS, was sick and needed a kidney.
Having worked to save lives for 30 years in the county, he had a good idea what he was in for — spending four hours a day, three days a week hooked up to a dialysis machine for at least five to seven years, hoping and praying a kidney match would come through.
“I’ve seen what this disease can do and I accepted that’s what was going to happen,” he said. “But there’s always that hope.”
Friends and family reached out, offering one of their kidneys to Adams. However, to donate a kidney, one has to be in exceptional health — Adams said all washed out when they went through a screening interview over the phone with the University of Kentucky.
Some might call it luck, but Adams said it was the power of prayer — a man originally from Lexington, a man who could’ve easily went about his life without ever running into Adams, happened to be a perfect match.
Rodney Mullannix was born and raised in the rolling bluegrass of Lexington, far from the hills and hollers where Adams was from. Like Adams, he worked as a paramedic.
Around 2000, he married his wife, Angela — who is from this area — and that’s how he met Adams.
The two just clicked — Mullannix said besides their careers, they were “strangely alike.”
“From the minute I met Tom, it felt more like a family-type bond,” he said. “I grew up in Lexington, I worked in Lexington. If I hadn’t met my wife, I would’ve never met Tom. Now, I’d say it was part of God’s plan.”
When Adams’s family put the all-call out on Facebook looking for a donor, Mullannix said he didn’t think twice.
“There was no thinking about it, I just did it,” he said.
Adams, who had seen a few rejections already, said he didn’t have all that much hope. He said he was driving down the road when Mullannix called him with the news: he cleared the screener.
“I’ll be honest with you, I had to pull over,” he said.
As the doctors at UK ran their tests, to make sure Adams could take a donation and Mullannix could give it, things started looking brighter and brighter.
When it was all said and done, Adams was on the donor list for only a couple of weeks.
On July 25, Adams and Mullannix went under the knife. The very next day, Adams said he had good kidney function. A test this week showed he was in the 80th percentile of function for a kidney recipient.
Adams, so used to saving lives, said being saved himself was “a humbling experience.”
“It’s difficult to be in that boat, but it’s also incredibly humbling to have a friend who cares enough to not only give me a a kidney, but a new life,” Adams said. “This is the answer to my prayers.”
Adams said he hopes people can keep in mind the benefits of living organ donors.
“I can’t emphasize enough how much they’re needed,” he said. “Living organ donors can save lives because people can get their transplant when they’re still healthy enough for it.”
Added Adams: “I know it’s all downhill with this disease. I couldn’t imagine if I had to undergo this surgery five years from now, after five years of dialysis when I’m 68 or 69.”
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