By Montserrat Arqué
Nov 27, 2023, 1:48 PM EST
There is no doubt that social networks can be used to help others, even to save their lives, and as testimony to this we have the case of a young TikTok user, originally from Oklahoma named Katie Hallum, who found her salvation thanks to a comment on this platform.
It turns out that in July of last year, Katie uploaded a reel in which she told what it was like to live under dialysis treatment and how she was on the waiting list to be a candidate for a kidney transplant, after both organs suffered. a complete collapse in 2021 that caused him to develop chronic kidney failure.
This video was seen by a young woman from Kansas named Savannah Stallbaumer, who is a nurse and knows firsthand what a dialysis patient suffers, so she decided to help Hallum.
Savannah sent Hallum a message asking him where he should go to get the compatibility test, because without knowing her, he wanted to donate one of his kidneys to her. At first, it seemed strange to her that someone who didn’t know her would want to help her and she ruled out the option, thinking that she would soon receive the organ she needed from a deceased patient, something that could happen in a period of between 2 and 5 years.
But time passed and she received no news that anyone could be her donor, so Katie sent all the information to Savannah at the transplant center at her hospital in Tulsa so that she could undergo the relevant tests, showing that they were compatible.
A kidney donor 500 kilometers away
It was last August when the surgery took place; Prior to this, Stallbaumer and Hallum met in person a couple of times to get to know each other.
Months after the transplant, Katie, 21, is in perfect health and is about to finish her university studies, where she is studying Journalism and International Security. She and Stallbaumer, 22, have become close friends since being introduced on TikTok, and this year they plan to spend Christmas together.
“Having the kidney in her is like an unbreakable bond. It’s a little weird to say, but she has a piece of my body on her body. Now I’m like 5% Savannah,” she told The Washington Post.
For his part, Stallbaumer will begin studying nursing at Manhattan Area Technical College in Manhattan. She hopes to work in oncology or dialysis.
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