In 2024, Mark Maggio of Arlington, Virginia, received news he figured might come soon but hoped it wouldn’t — testing showed he needed a second kidney transplant.
“That was kind of devastating news,” Maggio said. “After the first kidney went so well for so long, you kind of think, ‘Oh, it’ll go to 50 years.’ But obviously, it didn’t.”
He had hoped the transplant he received in 1988 would last longer, but realized that wouldn’t be the case for him.
Maggio, 65, saw his name added to a list of people in need of donations again, but it turned out a match would be found closer to home. His daughter, Carrie, stepped up and offered to be a donor.
“I quickly decided that I wanted to help him in this way, and it ended up turning out that I was a perfect match to him,” Carrie Maggio said.
Total eclipse of the … kidney?
Before going more into the second transplant, it’s important to note that Carrie might not be here if it wasn’t for that first transplant 36 years ago.
In 1988, the transplant team introduced Maggio to a transplant nurse named Anna Marie, who became a transplant nurse after donating her kidney to her own father.
Anna Marie recalled using humor to put Maggio at ease before his procedure, asking him “do you want to see your kidney” before holding up the box with it and showing him where it would go.
Maggio had a successful transplant and recalled being interested early on in their interactions.
“I thought he was a nice-looking guy, but I had no intention of going out with a patient,” Anna Marie told WTOP.
But a brave Mark made sure to ask her out to dinner before being discharged, and at first, she turned him down.
“He just looked like a whipped pup, like ‘I can’t believe she’s saying no.’ And I was a sucker for that,” Anna Marie said.
Nearly a year later, that one date led to their engagement, a wedding, the birth of their three girls and then 35 years of wedded bliss.
‘The gift of life’
With the knowledge her mother donated her kidney to save her grandfather and helped on the surgical team that did her father’s first transplant, Carrie Maggio said that fueled her decision to help her father.
“My family was going through something, and I knew that I wanted to help my dad as he’d helped me my entire life,” Carrie said.
The transplant took place the day after Christmas last year, and Carrie said, “I guess it was a physical gift, but I didn’t get him a wrapped gift.”
Dr. Stephen Potter, director of pancreas transplantation at MedStar Georgetown Transplant Institute, who did Mark Maggio’s procedure said there was something Carrie didn’t realize.
“We wrapped it up in the room where you donated it carried it over to Mark’s room and unwrapped it and transplanted it,” Dr. Potter revealed.
Potter remembered the family well and their incredible story.
“When you add the family connections and the incredible selflessness of Carrie, who donated a kidney to her father when he was in need, it really brings home for you how fragile life is and how incredible this gift of life is through living kidney donation,” Potter said.
The hospital is a big player in transplants, and near the top of the list when it comes to the number of kidney transplants done.
Looking back, the family said they learned a lot had changed with the transplant process since Mark’s first transplant. While Carrie was a match, he said if she wasn’t, it was possible she would have matched with someone else who had a donor that was a match for her father.
“Even if you want to donate to someone with an incompatible blood type, we can still perform that through what’s called a paired kidney donation,” Potter said.
Mark said he hopes others consider becoming kidney donors, because there are many in need.
“The transplant changes your life. It’s way different than being on dialysis, and it completely frees your spirit,” he said.
Maggio said he is thankful his daughter helped him.
“It’s kind of hard to describe, honestly, but it’s really a remarkable experience,” Carrie said.
April, as it turns out, is National Donate Life Month.
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