Minnesota Noice: Kidney For a Stranger

Is "Minnesota Nice" a myth?

NOOOOOOOOOOPE

Now when I meet a stranger in a bar, the conversation rarely lasts longer than 21 seconds...because I'm weird (so I've been told).

Let us travel to Nimrod, Minnesota, which is where one of my favorite small-town street dances takes place. Two strangers started talking at the Nimrod Bar & Grill when Kristin Day noticed a fistula ("an abnormal or surgically made passage between a hollow or tubular organ and the body surface, or between two hollow or tubular organs" ~ Dictionary.com) on a man's arm. They got to talking and the man revealed that he required kidney dialysis every other day until he got a kidney transplant.

After a couple hours of conversation, Kristin did the most not-at-a-bar-thing in the history of the world: she offered the man one of her kidneys.

For the record: she didn't offer it for him to take right then and there. She did later say, "We were in the right place at the right time."

They didn't know if she was a match for him, but she offered to donate a kidney to him if they were. After a plethora of screenings, tests, and meetings, she was confirmed to be a blood match and a cross match.

And she kept her word.

Nearly six months from the day that she met the man, Kristin made good on her promise and underwent surgery to donate one of her kidneys.

After four days of recovery in the hospital, she went home. Some discomfort from a reaction to pain medication aside, she said it was no big deal.

Saving a person's life? That's a big deal. Her Minnesota humility remains intact, saying that she didn't feel like a hero...but perhaps if family bought her a cake she would.

Mmmm...cake and humility. Deeeeelish!

H/T: Yahoo / Grand Forks Herald