A Chiefs fan donated a kidney to an Eagles fan.Now they’re headed to the Super Bowl together | US News
When Billy Welsh stated on social media that he urgently needed a new kidney more than two years ago, his former US Marine Corps comrade John Gladwell stepped up and donated one of his kidneys. Did.
Little did the two men know that Gladwell’s act of friendship (preceding his own monumental health crisis) would give both men the opportunity to share the trip of a lifetime. I did. super ball to see their favorite soccer teams face off in the big game.
“He’s my hero,” Welsh said of Gladwell. Local TV news article about marital relationships. Of Wales, meanwhile, Gladwell said, “He’s family.”
Gladwell and Welsh serve with the U.S. Marine Corps at the chapter’s base in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, as the Chiefs face the Philadelphia Eagles in Sunday’s NFL championship game, according to Kansas City’s KMBC station. I met you for the first time when I was
Gladwell, a Chiefs fan, said he didn’t like the young Wales at all at first.
“He was just too enthusiastic,” Gladwell told the station on Saturday. “I just wanted to go home. I wanted to get out.”
Eagles stalwart Welsh didn’t think much of Gladwell either, so he didn’t care. “He was an idiot,” said Welsh.
Recently, however, their hearts were softened when Welsh used social media to reunite with Gladwell, revealing he was struggling with his health and desperately searching for a new kidney.
Welsh admits he was shocked when Gladwell replied that he was a donor match and would be in town soon.
“I cried,” Wales told KMBC.
But Gladwell said it wasn’t a difficult decision. He wasn’t thinking only of Welsh, he said. He knew that he had a two-year-old son in Wales, about the same age as his one of Gladwell’s grandchildren.
“Even if I could have done something, I don’t think I could have lived with myself,” Gladwell told KMBC. I wanted my Welsh kid to be able to go with me to see all the Philadelphia sports teams play, including the Sixers.
“I wanted him to be able to experience all of that with his father,” Gladwell said.
Gladwell donated the kidney to Wales in October 2020. Early last year, the full weight of the sacrifice was revealed when a Covid-19 infection sent Gladwell to the hospital’s intensive care unit with advanced kidney failure.
“I was in a pretty tight spot,” said Gladwell.
It took him nearly a month to recover, but he did. And Welsh said he was grateful for that, and that their kidneys were doing well.
Neither Wales nor Gladwell had been to the Super Bowl. So after the Gladwells Chiefs and Welsh Eagles qualified for Sunday’s Super Bowl, the two teams teamed up to allow the two of them to be in a stadium in Phoenix, where the NFL’s title game will be held. I arranged.
Wales wants the Eagles to win their first Super Bowl since 2018, while Gladwell wants the Chiefs to regain their first professional football crown since 2020.
But whatever the outcome, the trip itself represents a monumental victory over hardship, not only for the two men, but also for Gladwell’s wife, Randy.
Nine years ago she had spent several months in Phoenix, where she was being treated for ovarian cancer that had spread to her kidneys.
Her survival rate was reportedly 7%. But when she headed to Phoenix again with Gladwell and Welsh, her cancer was in remission.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/12/chiefs-fan-donated-kidney-eagles-super-bowl A Chiefs fan donated a kidney to an Eagles fan.Now they’re headed to the Super Bowl together | US News