Ryan Winkels has come to a pretty significant crossroads. After two years of losing weight and jumping through medical hoops to get on the kidney transplant list, and another five years of waiting on that list, Winkels has found a donor.

Or, rather, a donor has found him.

Winkels’ wife Candie reached out on Facebook, asking whether there was anyone with Ryan’s blood type – O positive – who was in good health and would consider donating a kidney. It was a bit of a long shot, but they decided to take it.

Winkels has Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), which basically causes scarring to the tiny filtration units that separate blood from toxins within the kidney itself. These filtration units, called glomeruli, are slowly affected, according to kidney.org, with the disease progressing from just small portions of a few glomeruli to a progressively larger area and number over time. Caused by any number of things, some of the risk factors for FSGS include infections, drugs, or diseases such as autoimmune disorders, diabetes, lupus, or sickle cell.

Winkels’ kidney had completely shut down, he said, and he’d accepted the fact that a donor may not be on his horizon. And then, a message – to Candie, on Facebook, from an old friend she’d worked with in the past; Cheryl Lockhart, of Jamestown, NY.

“Hi, remember me,” the message amounted to, recalls Winkels, and, “I’m that blood type!”

Long story short, Cheryl, who was also type O positive and in good overall health, called Winkels’ transplant coordinator and got a list of tests she had to go through. And to make a miraculous find even more impressive, according to Winkels, “Cheryl was a 100% match.”

Kidney transplant donors go through three major tests to do all that can be done to ensure that a donated organ will “match” its new body. Blood typing and HLA testing, which is similar to blood typing but checks whether antigens in donor and host tissue match help to shed light on who will be a good donor for any particular transplant patient. Crossmatch testing is interesting. In crossmatch testing, blood from both the donor and the transplant recipient are mixed, and watched to discover whether the recipient’s cells attack and kill the donor’s cells. If this happens, regardless of bloodtype and HLA results, transplantation between that donor and recipient are generally contraindicated due to the high likelihood that the recipient’s body will reject the transplanted organ.

“It was on a Tuesday,” Winkels recalls, that he got the news that he would be getting a kidney. “It was unreal to get the news,” said Winkels. “To think, ‘hey I might live,’ after thinking it wasn’t going to happen was unreal.”

But it’s not all sunshine and roses just yet. While Winkels’ insurance is helping with the brunt of both his and Lockhart’s medical costs, there is still the issue of getting Lockhart to the hospital and the lodging of her husband, who will be accompanying her there, not to mention Winkels’ wife.

And Winkels is federally prohibited from paying Lockhart’s way himself. It is illegal to pay a living organ donor for his or her donation. Because the government thinks it’s probably a bad idea to create conditions for a literal meat market, apparently.

But through a trust set up by Candie Winkels in her husband’s name – complete with a tax ID number and the blessing of the IRS – Winkel is allowed to raise funds from others that will benefit his donor and go toward the cost of her travel, lodging, and other nonmedical costs. To that end, Winkels and his wife are planning a Kidney Transplant Benefit for both Lockhart and Winkels.

The benefit, to be held Sunday, Oct. 2, from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Eagles Club on Warren’s east side, will feature live music by Ron Carrington and Bob Lawson, of the Touch of Gold band, a 50/50 raffle, a silent auction, a bake sale and a Spaghetti Dinner with takeout available. All proceeds will go toward making the offer of a kidney transplant possible for Winkels, who’s been waiting seven years to have one.

For more information on the benefit, contact Candie Winkel at snowite68@gmail.com, or by calling (814) 779-8468.