ST. LOUIS — Currently, more than 100,000 people in the United States are waiting for a life-saving organ transplant.
5 On Your Side's Annie Krall sat down with a husband no longer in need of a kidney thanks to the love of his life and a first date at Dairy Queen more than 30 years ago.
In sickness and in health is the age old marriage vow Rob and Nikki Gallier made in 1999.
Unfortunately, sickness eventually came for the Galliers.
"Every family, every person has struggles, but this was probably, most certainly the hardest time of our life," Nikki said. "It was very difficult."
About a year ago, Rob's kidneys started to fail.
"I weighed 270 pounds," Rob said. "I had almost 100 pounds of water weight on me. I couldn't breathe, couldn't sleep. Nothing. It was miserable."
Eventually diagnosed with renal failure, Rob was also unable to see for 11 weeks while he was going through everything else.
"I was tested," Rob said. "The Devil was trying to get to me."
They decided to drive about three hours from Mahomet in central Illinois to Barnes-Jewish Hospital to try and get Rob a transplant.
Many in their community offered to get tested as a possible donor for him. However, "I just had a gut feeling at the time," Nikki said. "I just didn't even have a second thought. It's 'I want to be tested first.'"
On March 14, 2024, Nikki became a donor to the boy she met in high school in Fisher, Illinois. The volleyball star falling for a football senior on October 14, 1992, during their first date.
"Dairy Queen was our first stop," Rob remembered.
"Probably a little nerve wracking because my stepdad was his football coach," Nikki said. "So, there's that."
"I really had to behave," Rob added.
Now with three kids who are all athletes, they're helping the Mahomet freshman football coach on his road to recovery.
Doctors at Barnes-Jewish Hospital said they have the 16th largest kidney transplant program in the country. Last year alone, they performed 330 kidney transplants.
"It's more common for a parent to match their child because you're sharing the blood type," said Dr. Jason Wellen, the kidney and pancreas transplant surgical director of the Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Transplant Center. "The child is 50% of each parent. With a spouse, you don't know what you're marrying. When you go on a date, you don't really ask what your blood type is. Maybe we should but we don't."
Dr. Henry Randall, the professor of surgery at Saint Louis University School of Medicine and director of the Transplant Center at SSM Health St. Louis University Hospital, said that spousal transplants aren't that rare.
"We don't have to worry about relations with the majority of transplants because we have powerful immunosuppressant drugs that make up for those genetic differences," Randall said.
Rob said Nikki gave him her heart 32 years ago. Now, she's given him her kidney.
"I tell people that all the time," Rob said. "I'm blessed to have her as my wife. She's my best friend. She's my hero and she saved my life."
Their son Jack Gallier was recently awarded the inaugural Frank Dutton Blue Dot Society Scholarship as a Mahomet-Seymour Senior after playing four years on the high school football team, adding to the Gallier football legacy as he heads to the University of Sioux Falls.
If you're interested in donating a kidney or being added to the national donor list, you can visit the Barnes Jewish Donate Life website or the national organization United Network for Organ Sharing.