Rochester & Genesee Valley AFL-CIO Area Labor Federation Editor’s Note: Our own Chief of Staff, Maria Thomas Fisher, is donating her kidney to someone she met through Facebook.  Union Members continue to use their lives to help our community!  Maria says that "she is grateful that she is a Union Member and will be able to take time off and have the full support of her Union Brothers and Sisters during her recovery." #UnionStrong.  Angella Luyk, on the right, takes a selfie with Maria Thomas Fisher and Harry Powell.  Luyk met Fisher on Facebook.  When Luyk posted on Facebook that her husband was in desperate need of a kidney, Fisher said she wanted to be the donor. The surgery is scheduled for July 24th.  (Photo: Olivia Lopez/@olopez4/Staff Photographer)

(ROCHESTER, NEW YORK) - Angella Luyk faced losing the love of her life.  She was down to months to find a kidney donor for Harry Powell, her best friend for 22 years and husband for the past 15.  Desperate to get the word out, on January 16th she posted their plight on Facebook.

“Harry will be added to the transplant list,” she wrote. “If anyone is interested in getting more information about donating a kidney, please contact me.  I will be moving forward with finding him a kidney.”

On February 5th, Luyk received a text from a Facebook friend she had met only once in person. 

“I’m interested in donating a kidney,” Maria Thomas Fisher texted.

Luyk texted back: “Omg thank you so much.” 

She sent the number to call at the University of Rochester Medical Center and instructed her to say she wanted to be tested for Harold Powell.

Luyk said her husband’s kidney disease resulted from diabetes, which was diagnosed about seven years ago.  

In November, Powell’s kidney function worsened.

The couple spent December following up with doctors, who said the Henrietta couple had at least three years before things got dire.

“In February I got a call that you don’t have three years,” she said. “You may have six months.  If that.  His kidney function was down to about twelve-percent.”

Powell had lost his appetite.  

Leg cramps kept him up at night and his discomfort would wake her.  

Neither had slept through the night in months.

Powell was not on dialysis, which his wife said would have made him weaker.

In Spring of 2017, Luyk had been scrolling through her Facebook feed and saw that she and Fisher had mutual friends.

Luyk sent a friend request.

She rationalized: “We have a lot of friends in common so we must have something in common.” 

Fisher, the Chief of Staff of the Rochester & Genesee Valley AFL-CIO Area Labor Federation, accepted the request.

But they didn’t have any exchanges - no likes of each other’s posts, no direct messages.

In June 2017, Luyk saw Fisher’s post seeking guests for her radio show, Still I Rise (WAYO, 104.3 FM), which highlights women who have beaten the odds.

Luyk went on the show in August to talk about her own health issues and she mentioned that doctors were monitoring a kidney situation with her husband.

Months passed with no more contact.  Then Luyk posted that Powell’s kidneys were failing fast.

“All of a sudden she’s like, I’ll do it, I’ll get tested,” Luyk said. “I was, ‘What? Are you sure?’ Who does that?  What stranger would say: ‘I’m going to take part of my body and give it to your husband who I don’t even know.’”

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