ANN ARBOR, Mich. – An Ann Arbor grandmother with failing kidneys was saved by her son-in-law after he turned out to be a very rare match for the surgery.
Alisande Read said she thought her daughter Meaghan's boyfriend was a keeper 20 years ago, but she never knew he'd be a lifesaver.
"It's huge to know that he's willing to give up an organ for me, and to have surgery for me is amazing," Read said.
"I said, 'Well, I'll try.' You know, and I got the blood work done, and they said, 'You're a match,'" Nathan Bush said.
Bush's wife was a match for her mother four years ago, but Read was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had to beat cancer and remain cancer-free for two years.
"That stopped the whole process," Meaghan Bush said.
Now that Read has made it through her cancer treatment, it's time for her to get a new kidney.
"Every day I think what a tremendous thing he's doing," Read said. "My biggest fear is that after we go through all this that somehow my body will turn against it, and the doctors have said that's not going to happen."
Read and her son-in-law even got coordinating T-shirts for the hospital stay. On Wednesday morning, they'll go to the University of Michigan Hospital for the transplant.