Through a pandemic and a kidney transplant, love conquered all

Francisco met Virginia after his brother begged him to come on a double date with him, his date, and her friend. Reluctant to go, Francisco agreed and met Virginia, both of them looked at each other and smiled, and said the rest was history.  

Despite being two different people— Virginia was Half Lebanese and very optimistic and bubbly, and Francisco was Dominican and calm and realistic-- they both agreed that they balanced each other out well. 

They have been married for 23 years and live in Wellington, FL. Because of Francisco’s job at the family farm in the Dominican Republic (DR), they would often have to commute back and forth from both places. At the time, he was in perfect health and weighed 210 pounds. 

All that changed in June of last year. 

“It was crazy, I mean he just went from being healthy to being on a bunch of pills,” Virginia said. “First it was the night sweats, then rheumatic fever after having strep, and the combination ended up messing with his heart and valve and messed up his kidney.”

At the time Francisco was in the DR and the doctors had told him his heart needed to be operated on. He quickly booked his flight back to the U.S. to have open-heart surgery to repair the damaged valve.

The doctors started Francisco on dialysis, and both Francisco and Virginia began preparing for the process of getting him listed on the transplant waiting list at Mayo Clinic Florida.

What began with needing only a few medications and dialysis a few times a week, turned into Francisco receiving his dialysis daily at his home as he became progressively sicker and sicker. His skin turned a grey ashy tone, and his weight dropped down to 148 pounds. 

Virginia had to tell family and friends whenever they saw him be prepared, because of his dramatic weight loss. As things with COVID also picked up, they couldn’t have people over and they couldn’t go anywhere. 

Francisco wasn’t able to leave his room. If he wanted a glass of water during the night Virginia would have to get it for him. Even if his old friends from school invited him for dinner thirty minutes away by the time dessert was served, they would have to come rushing home for his dialysis.  

One of their daughters had to come home from college and Virginia had to start the transition to teaching online. 

She also had to balance taking trips to the grocery store, cooking, cleaning, managing Francisco’s dialysis and his medications, teaching students online all while completing her Master’s degree. 

Virginia said it was crucial to be organized and she did not notice how badly her body was dealing with the stress until the day Francisco got the transplant. For the first time in the past year or so, she could fall asleep without waking up and woke up completely refreshed.

After months of being weighed down by not being able to go anywhere because of COVID and because of Francisco’s dialysis, they both finally received a call from Mayo Clinic at 9:30 in the evening, to receive a transplant the next morning.

The usual 5-hour drive from South Florida to Jacksonville took them four hours that day and by 1 pm, they were ready for surgery. 

Virginia watched Francisco being rolled away by his doctors and two hours later he had the kidney transplant. He had returned a new person. And came to our house to manage his recovery afterward and receive checkups. 

“His color came back and you could see the flush of pink in his cheeks and he was finally smiling and happy after a long time,” Virginia said. 

When asking her how she managed class assignments for her masters, she said that she had to do something for herself to keep her sanity. She is completing a Master’s in curriculum design and better classroom instruction. 

“Even with everything going on- I was trying to make the best of everything,” Virginia remembered about the past year. “It didn’t matter if my students didn’t learn a thing about math, it’s to show them, that even in the face of adversity we have to be flexible and find a way of getting on with life.” 

That was the biggest lesson and message that kept Virginia going to support Francisco and she kept the same positivity in her teaching. Virginia and Francisco agreed that staying at the Gabriel House helped relieve many household chores that they did not have to worry about here. Francisco could focus on healing and Virginia could focus on taking care of her husband and completing her Master’s.