Minnesota dads meet after life-saving kidney transplant: “You’re family to me”

By Adam Duxter

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    MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — This Father’s Day, plenty of presents are sure to be exchanged. But for two Twin Cities dads, one amazing gift now tops them all.

Matt Bohlke of Crystal and Keith Meyer of Buffalo say it’s the start of something new.

Keith Meyer is about to meet the man who saved his life.

“I don’t know that anything lives up to that hug,” Bohlke said.

“They took your kidney, put it on ice, and then just threw it right over at me,” Meyer said.

But before Bohlke could visit Meyer’s farm and meet the man he’d given a second chance, he had to get one himself.

“It’s pretty powerful,” Bohlke said. “I’m an alcoholic … I was someone who had really lost the will to live.”

Six-and-a-half years sober, Bohlke decided to donate his kidney through a national registry after seeing a coworker who’d had a successful operation.

“The idea that I could then go on and use one of my organs after I had abused it so hard,” Bohlke said. “It’s a good feeling I couldn’t generate on my own.”

He had no clue the stranger he would give to lived just a short drive away.

Meyer battled dialysis, sepsis, one strikeout after another for a donor. He waited near the top of the list until he got the call: his second chance was here.

“As soon as that kidney had hooked up and connected, it worked fully and it functioned excellently,” Meyer said.

If the story ended there, it’d be remarkable. Until you realize the reason Meyer was at the top of a list to get a kidney from a stranger is because his daughter Kara realized if she donated hers to a stranger, it’d make his transplant a priority.

“I can’t imagine a life without my dad,” she said.

She made a video when she found out she was saving not one, but two lives.

“It is such an incredible act of love and sacrifice,” Meyer said. “On Facebook, folks that I’ve shared this with say, ‘Your daughter’s a hero.’ Yes, she is.”

Both men say this moment is no accident. Their mutual faith in God tells them it’s part of a bigger plan. Two dads — now one family.

“Matt, and Anna, and Greta are family,” Meyer said. “They’re family. You’re family to me.”

Both men say they’re incredibly grateful for the Mayo Clinic, which handled the transplant.

They’ve already got plans to get together again. They’re also advocating for others to check out organ donation — 89,000 Americans are on a waitlist for kidney donations.

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