April 25, 2025
Daniel Burke/Temple Health
Meghan Bosack, 21, meets Evelyn Bautista, 17, for the first time. Bosack, of upstate New York, donated her left kidney to Bautista, of Bucks County, who had been on the transplant waiting list. Bosack had her kidney removed to ease her symptoms from Nutcracker Syndrome.
Megan Bosack and Evelyn Bautista shared an intimate bond that is rare in this world, even though they had never met.
Bosack, a 21-year-old from Rockland County, New York, has been living with Nutcracker Syndrome, a serious condition in which her left kidney vein was compressed, restricting blood flow. This impeded her daily life and left her with chronic pain. Bosack decided to have her kidney removed to save her own life and to donate it to someone else to save theirs.
In a Facebook support group, Bosack heard about Temple University Hospital's nationally-renowned transplant program and came to Philadelphia for her surgery on April 7. That same day, Bautista, 17, who had been diagnosed with kidney disease at 11, received Bosack's kidney at St. Christopher's Hospital. Temple doctors successfully performed both procedures.
Bosack's pain from the Nutcracker's Syndrome lifted almost immediately after her surgery. Bautista is also doing well. But the two young women didn't know anything about each other – not even their ages or genders – until they met for the first time Friday in the lobby at Temple University Hospital.
"I don't even know what to say," Bosack said to Bautista after they hugged, and then hugged again.
As of early March, more than 104,000 people are on the national transplant waiting list. Nearly 90% of them are waiting for a kidney, according to the American Kidney Foundation.
In the Philadelphia region, people wait five to seven years for a donor kidney. That wait time is eliminated if a living donor steps forward, said registered nurse John Mulligan, Temple's living donor kidney transplant coordinator.
But only 1 in 4 transplants in 2024 were from living donors, according to theAmerican Kidney Foundation.
Living donors create a larger pool of kidneys available for everyone who needs one. Living donors enable transplant teams to plan surgeries at a time when people are at their healthiest, improving the chances for successful outcomes. And on average, a kidney from a living donor lasts 15 to 20 years, compared to seven to 10 years for a kidney from a deceased donor, according to the National Kidney Foundation.
"Kidneys are like cars," said Dr. Kenneth Chavin, director of Temple's abdominal organ transplant program. "Older cars will get you off dialysis, but they're not going to work as long as a younger one."
So it was ideal that Bosack's kidney went to Bautista, Chavin said.
And the success of this transplant shows that people don't have to be related for living kidney donation, Mulligan said.
"There's actually two people coming out of this better than they were in the beginning," Mulligan said.
Meghan Bosack, 21, of Rockland County, New York, was all smiles Friday with her parents at Temple University Hospital after she met the Evelyn Bautista, the 17-year-old girl who received her kidney.
Bosack went from being a "typical teenager," her mother said, showing horses, being active and driving to being nauseous and in pain all of the time and periodically losing consciousness. She had to go on disability and lose her driver's license.
"It's hard as a parent to see your child not doing the same things that other children are doing," Nancy Bosack said.
Bosack was cleared to have her kidney removed in September, but the organ was otherwise healthy. So Bosack decided to postpone the surgery until she could go through the screening process to become a living donor.
"She said, 'I will wait. I've been living so long with chronic pain. I can do it a little longer," Nancy said.
Without chronic pain from Nutcracker's Syndrome, Bosack, who works as a paralegal from home, said she was planning on going to concerts, hitting the beach – "having a shot at life."
Bautista, a senior at Bensalem High School, will start at Bucks County Community College in the fall. But her academics suffered during the 1 1/2 years that she was on dialysis while waiting for a kidney, Bautista said.
"I wasn't feeling my best," Bautista said. "It was a long time."
Chavin, who has three daughters, said the most stressful and most rewarding transplants he does are in pediatrics. "It's just because I see my children in whoever I'm caring for."
And for young people, having kidney disease is extra hard, Chavin said: "You're different. Teenagers don't like being different to begin with, let alone have a chronic disease."
Bosack said she was glad her kidney went to someone close to her own age.
"I'm just super happy she feels good, and that everything is so far working well," Bosack said.
"I'm so grateful," said Bautista's mother, Azuzena Campos. "I don't have words to say how good I feel. I'm so happy for her and for us as a family."
