Reward of everyday living: Gregg County sheriff’s deputy to get kidney from White Oak girl | Regional Information

“That was rough likely,” Freeman claimed Wednesday. “When I went up on the 27th to do my COVID exam, I had no symptoms at all.”

His donor, Alyssa Mathews, 25, of White Oak, said the simply call was a bit of a shock.

“I was variety of frustrated about it for the reason that I was ready for him to come to feel improved,” she explained.

He claimed it took a few to 4 days before he started getting signs or symptoms of the virus.

“I never ever bought the coughing or owning issues breathing,” Freeman mentioned. “I just obtained the fever and for about 4 days … all I fairly much accomplished was snooze. I in no way genuinely did get any of the other signs or symptoms. People today acquired it way worse than I did.”

Freeman fully recovered from COVID-19 and has been symptom-cost-free for many weeks. His family thinks he contracted the virus when he traveled to Dallas for his pre-procedure lab do the job because he was home for two months right before that.

“We ultimately bought by it,” he explained.

Freeman mentioned he has been remaining household and being away from persons during the pandemic, viewing a lot of Television and carrying out jobs about his home.

“I’ve been emotion so a lot superior,” he reported. Freeman explained he is on leave from work at the Gregg County Sheriff’s Workplace where he serves as a sergeant around the warrants and civil division. On Feb. 1, he will have worked with the department for 31 many years.

“I started when I was quite young,” he explained, laughing.

The rescheduling could start out subsequent 7 days when he is set back again on the transplant list.

“We are on a holding pattern right until we listen to from the transplant heart in Dallas,” Freeman mentioned.

From then, it could take two to three weeks to get the operation scheduled.

“By God’s grace we gotta get via it all on equally sides,” Freeman stated. “It’s a significant surgical procedures, and we obtained a good deal of procedure forward of us. For the relaxation of my life, I will be on an anti-rejection treatment.”

The street to getting a donor and getting a transplant has been a prolonged 1 for Freeman. He experienced been on the transplant record and on dialysis for a year.

“Dialysis messes with you,” Mathews explained. “I imagine he’s ready to get off dialysis. Ideally, he’ll be off very before long.”

“I discovered out I had diabetes at 32, so that’s what’s causing the kidney failure. I observed out about my kidney illness about five decades in the past,” Freeman claimed. “We tried out medicine and things like that, but as time went by, it just got worse and worse. Now, we’re in the closing phase.”

Freeman mentioned the ideal point a particular person can do is to consider to continue to be wholesome and consider treatment of on their own.

“Take treatment of your human body due to the fact you only got one,” he said. “When we’re youthful we think we’re indestructible.”

Mathews claimed the wish to donate an organ was planted early in her existence.

“In August, I was on Facebook, and I seen that 1 of my close friends shared this Fb site which was (Freeman’s) that his cousin set up for him,” Mathews explained. “I was examining his biography, and I felt like God was telling me to donate.”

When Mathews was 11 months old, her father died from Type 1 diabetes and kidney failure.

“He was on dialysis for 10 months and never received a kidney,” she said.

When Mathews’ sister unexpectedly passed absent many years later on, she was equipped to aid 75 men and women with organ and tissue donation, Mathews reported. In college, Mathews investigated and wrote a paper on organ donation.

“Growing up, I felt I wished an individual had donated for my dad,” Mathews explained. “I want to donate for Tracy and donate for his family.”

Mathews was authorized as Freeman’s donor in December. They pair met at a restaurant and took a photo together by a Christmas tree.

“It was amazing,” Mathews explained. “At very first I was anxious. He was seriously amusing. It made me want to donate even extra to him.”

Freeman said he was happy to satisfy Mathews and her mother that night.

“She’s an incredible young woman,” Freeman explained. “She would seem to know what she wants to go in existence.”

Mathews is the owner of Maw Maw’s Bakery .

“It’s such a fantastic and amazing thing,” Mathews mentioned of organ donation. “A lot of individuals aren’t organ donors mainly because they really don’t know a large amount about it.”

Freeman stated there is several men and women who require organs donated — not just kidneys.

“If you are in excellent well being, inclined to see at least about donating, consider a search,” he said.