The Twice-Transplanted Kidney
“Few kidneys would be good enough” for this rare surgery.
Updated on April 12 at 4:55 p.m. ET
Vertis Boyce got the call from her transplant surgeon last July. We have a kidney for you, Jeffrey Veale explained on the phone, but it has an unusual backstory. The kidney was first transplanted two years ago from a 17-year-old girl into a man in his early 20s, who just unexpectedly died in a car accident. Boyce would be its second recipient. Did she want it?
Boyce had by then been on dialysis for nine-and-a-half years and on the transplant list for nearly as long. “I thought, I’m 69 years old. When could I get a
