December, 1986 EKU Journalism Graduate

CINCINNATI, 6:59 a.m. EST February 5, 2001 -- WLWT Eyewitness News 5 anchor Lisa Cooney donated a kidney to a Tri-State man last month.

For the first time, Cooney and Andy Thelen shared their stories of heartbreak and love.

"I can't believe its actually happening for me," Andy Thelen said, shortly after Christmas. "When you sit at dialysis a couple (of) days a week, you see a lot of people you know have no hope of getting off of dialysis and no hope of ever getting a kidney transplant. And here you are just a few days away from getting your whole life changed."

Thelen, 28, of Lakeside Park, Ky., was about to see Cooney's husband, Tony, and two children, Jake and Avery. He wanted to meet Cooney's family before the scheduled transplant.

"It's almost like, 'When (are you going to) give that kidney, Mom?'" Cooney said. "'Have you given Andy that kidney yet?' They think I'm going to go to the store and drop it off. But I think they realize that someone needs help, and it's kind of neat."

Cooney told WLWT Eyewitness News 5's Dave Wagner that she was scared in the days leading up to the transplant. She prayed that she was doing the right thing, and she felt like she was.

A bishop prayed with Cooney and Thelen two days before the transplant.

"(Andy is) running out of alternatives," Cooney said. "He's running out of time. He's running out of hope. And I'm serious, I would pray to God somebody would help my family, somebody in my family, if they needed help. And somebody would. Can you imagine how his parents feel? How I would feel if it was my child and nobody in the family could help? I would pray that a friend or someone would help."

The day before the transplant, Cooney's mother, Joyce, kept a positive attitude.

"I don't know what the dear Lord has planned," Joyce Cooney said. "We just are going day by day. Even though it is terribly stressful, I am so proud and I think it is a wonderful thing. And I hope that Andy does well, and we'll have to pray for that too."

"You might say, 'What is Lisa getting out of this?'" her father, Ron, asked. "And I think what Lisa's getting out of this is knowing she's made a difference in someone else's life and given them another chance. In some ways, tomorrow is a new life for the two of them."

The day of the operation, Lisa Cooney said that she was scared, considering that she had never had an operation.

Cooney and Thelen arrived separately at The University Hospital on Jan. 11. Their lives were about to be joined forever.

"It's the right thing to do," Cooney said. "It just is. There's no other way to slice it. It's the right thing."

As doctors began their surgery on Cooney, Thelen's condition deteriorated, putting the transplant in doubt. Medicine to help combat rejection left Thelen shaking.

"There are many transplant teams that would not go ahead and do this and say it's not worth the slightly increased risk that we do foresee," Dr. Roy First said.

Within an hour, Thelen began to feel better, opening the window of opportunity to surgery.

In adjoining operating rooms, doctors removed Cooney's right kidney, laproscopically, through a small incision. The kidney was carried next door to Thelen. In a four-hour operation, transplant surgeons replaced Thelen's diseased kidney with Cooney's healthy one.

Within an hour, Thelen's new kidney began to work, removing the toxins that had made him so sick for so long.

Three days after surgery, Cooney was released from the hospital, heading home to her family. A day later, Thelen walked out of The University Hospital with a new outlook on life.

"I think it makes me look at other people in a different light," Thelen said. "Just because you have almost a total stranger at one time, offering a kidney to you to basically save my life and to give me a better life for the future.

"As a person, I would describe (Lisa) as very giving, very loving, very sharing, almost an angel and a true miracle worker in some sense."

For Cooney, it wasn't what she gave Thelen, but what she received.

"I feel like I've been blessed," she said. "I feel like I've been blessed to do something for somebody like this of this magnitude.

"I feel like I've already been rewarded. I really do. I'm a better person than I was the day before I got the call that said, 'You're the one.'"