A California couple is celebrating the greatest gift they can imagine Christmas – a healthy baby, thanks to the kindness of an organ donor who lives thousands of miles away.
Young parents Chad and Aileen Cooper came face to face with Michael Speck via Zoom, reports Chris Martinez of CBS News, in his first emotional encounter with selfless stranger.
“There are no words that can describe how grateful we are to you, Michael, for saving our son’s life,” said Aileen Cooper in the video call.
“It’s an honor,” Speck told her.
Speck donated part of his liver to Jacob Cooper, 10 months old. Jacob was born with biliary atresia, a rare disease of the liver and bile ducts that can be deadly.
“Your son was born with a problem and then someone from across the country that you have never met comes to save his life,” said father Chad Cooper.
Dr. Yuri Genyk, who works at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, where Jacob had the surgery, said the baby needed a liver transplant to survive.
“He was getting more and more sick,” said Genyk. “He was hospitalized with an infection before the transplant, he was seriously ill.”
Jacob’s father immediately offered to be a donor, but the tests revealed his own diagnosis.
“In computed tomography and MRI, we found a mass near your pelvis, and that needs to be seen immediately,” he recalled that doctors told him.
With Chad and Aileen Cooper, both inadequate donors, doctors began searching for another living donor – whom they found weeks later, almost 2,000 miles away in Ohio.
The donor was Michael Speck, 64.
Speck is a father and grandfather and was already an organ donor, having previously given a kidney to a minister years before.
“The surgeon told me he was a 10-month-old baby,” said Speck. “When I found this out, I started to cry.”
In October – in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic – Speck traveled to Los Angeles for the transplant. It was a complete success.
Speck now expects others to follow suit.
“There are so many people out there who can do the same thing as me,” he said.
Speaking to Chad and Aileen Cooper at Zoom, Speck said, “Being able to donate to a child … is a miracle.”
Aileen and Chad told Speck that he was a miracle.
“It’s worth seeing you,” he replied.
And in November, Jacob’s father, Chad Cooper, underwent surgery to remove his mass, a benign tumor. He and his son are fine.