Man in need of kidney transplant finds 1-in-100,000 match: His wife

For much of his adult life, Jim Irish was a self-proclaimed bachelor — moving cities every few years, too busy as a business executive and entrepreneur to devote much time to romantic endeavors.

By the time he was in his mid-50s, he had pretty much given up on the idea of finding a life partner.

But fate had other plans.

Little did he know a wink on a dating app from an English teacher with a warm smile and three children would — five years later— have him exchanging vows in Hawaii. He and his new wife, Mirna, exchanged the customary promises to love and care for one another in sickness and in health.

After nearly a decade of marriage, a grim diagnosis put those vows to the test.

Jim, now 66, started having trouble with his kidneys about two decades ago. He managed the issue with medication for years.

But nearly three years ago, doctors found a mass on his left kidney. Instead of removing it, surgeons performed a cryoablation, a minimally invasive procedure that uses extreme cold to destroy abnormal tissue. Complications during the procedure resulted in another surgery, he said.

“After several months my kidney function dropped by more than half, and it was at that time we realized I’m going to need a kidney transplant pretty quick,” he said.

But “transplant” and “pretty quick” don’t go hand in hand. Finding a suitable donor — one with the proper blood type, antibody levels and geographic location — all play a role. The National Kidney Foundation estimates that it can take two to five years or longer to find an appropriate match.

The couple was devastated.

“He was so desperate and so sad. We were crying,” said Mirna Irish, 56. “And he said, ‘What am I going to do? What’s going to happen?’ And I just thought, ‘I can give him my kidney.’ ”

Mirna has had her share of struggles. Her first marriage at age 18 ended in divorce, leaving her a single mother to three children. She lived in Mexico teaching English until her son, then 17 years old, was hit by a drunk driver in a crash that left him in a wheelchair.

She left her home and job behind to move to the United States to get her son the care he needed. He now owns a business selling portable hand controls for disabled drivers and is happily married, Mirna said.

Meeting Jim, she said, was like “finding peace.” And she wasn’t about to let that go.

The need for donor organs nationwide is much greater than the supply. The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network estimates that another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 10 minutes.

The odds of Jim and Mirna having compatible organs was a long shot — roughly one in 100,000. Still, Mirna said she would even donate to a stranger if it meant her husband could get an organ faster.

The San Diego couple got the shock of a lifetime when they learned that Mirna’s kidney was a genetic match to her husband’s.

“It’s very rare,” Jim said. “Out of 12 genetic markers, four of them are identical matches.”

But Jim still had more hurdles to overcome. He underwent a surgery to remove half his colon after suffering a bout of diverticulitis, and received iron infusions and hemoglobin shots. Then doctors found a 3-centimeter cancerous tumor on his right kidney. He underwent another cryoablation and as of a few weeks ago is cancer-free, he said.

On Friday, Mirna will finally be able to give Jim the gift she’s waited so long to deliver: a working kidney. If all goes according to plan, the couple hopes to celebrate their ninth wedding anniversary next month in Europe, visiting Germany, Switzerland and France.

For Jim, it’s hard not to feel lucky that the woman he waited so long to meet is also the person saving his life.

“We struggled so hard to find each other, we’re not ready to let either one of us go,” he said, his voice catching with emotion. “I can’t imagine my life without her.”

“I think I’m here for a reason,” Mirna said. “It’s a blessing to be able to give life — and to give it to the love of my life, it’s even better.”