It’s a Maine Thing
literature
How an amazingly generous Mainer saved the life of another
words by katie zarrilli
photo by amy wilton photography
“It’s go time.”
Three small words. One BIG meaning.
Before I can think of anything cute or clever to say for encouragement, my husband is wheeled away to the operating room. The next time I see him, he’ll have a new kidney … and we’ll have the beginnings of a new life.
My thumbs can’t move fast enough as I send rapid fire texts—updating our family and friends that surgery is underway. As I make my way to the waiting area at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston (where I end up plunking myself for hours because, NO I’m not leaving this place for a second), it feels surreal. I can’t believe this is happening.
What a journey it was to get here.
Maybe that sounds a little bit over the top. Kidney transplants happen every single day. And, as someone who has never defeated the “Most Dramatic” allegations of fourth grade superlatives (thank you, Miss Jones), I often have to check myself. But this time, like a Maine mom suggesting her teenager bring a sweatshirt, I know I’m right.
This story began years ago. Before I even met my husband, in fact. Matt or “Doc,” as I call him (his initials are MD, it’s always been a thing), was diagnosed with leukemia when he was 19 years old and a sophomore at the University of Maine. Chemotherapy worked initially, but three years later, the cancer came back. In 2011, he underwent a stem cell transplant. As if the recovery from that surgery wasn’t intense enough (imagine having to rebuild your entire immune system), he would later develop graft-versus-host disease, or GVHD. This is when newly donated cells view your body’s current cells as an attack, thus the name.
Pausing for a moment because I know this is a lot of medical jargon. Still with me?
Unfortunately for Doc, his new cells chose to attack his lungs. And so in 2016, he bravely underwent a double lung transplant.
I’d meet him a year later at the Tim Horton’s in Presque Isle. The mushy details of our love story are for a different day—though I will say, a bond built over a mutual love for the New England Patriots is an unbreakable one.
Through dating and our subsequent marriage in April of 2021, I watched Doc’s body grow stronger as it slowly adapted to its new lungs. He told me early on, though, that because of the harsh anti-rejection medications and other factors, eventually he would need a new kidney.
I mean, when you’ve already got two new organs, why not complete the trifecta?
The kidney conversations became more serious in the summer of 2024. Doctors urged Doc—okay, this is where the nickname can get confusing—to get listed with the National Kidney Registry and begin the search for a living donor.
My husband never asks for anything, let alone a spare organ. So it took some humility for us to ask publicly for this kind of help. But from the minute I first shared his plight on social media, we saw nothing but the goodness of people, Mainers in particular. And honestly, we haven’t stopped seeing that since.
I’ll admit—I thought finding him a kidney was going to be easy. I mean, everyone has two and we only need one. Simple, right? Wrong. We had countless family members and friends step up to donate—but for various reasons, none worked out. We even had a false alarm and got a call to come for emergency surgery—a deceased organ donor was a perfect match—but upon final testing, the surgeon discovered the possibility for rejection.
Not only was it agonizing to wait, it was also difficult to watch my husband’s health slowly decline. He was frequently tired, lost his appetite, and wasn’t himself for quite a while.
And then there was Sarah.
Sarah is a Mainer who came across my Instagram reel sharing his story and was moved immediately to help. She doesn’t know us from Adam. And vice versa. She quite simply wanted to do this for us for nothing in return. Mainers, right?
Sarah wasn’t a match for Doc—but she donated her kidney in his name this past August. This gave Doc a voucher with the National Kidney Registry so that when a kidney match became available, he would be next in line.
We got the call just before Christmas that, finally, there would be a kidney for Doc. It was a Monday morning, and the Patriots had just beaten the Ravens on Sunday Night Football. I thought that was going to be the highlight of my week. Sorry, Drake Maye. Love you, though.
Barring some final testing and as long as there were no snowstorms (Maine, I’m WARNING you) he’d have surgery on the 15th of January.
And, so, that Thursday, we showed up to the hospital in the earliest hours of the morning. Other than the surgery getting delayed a few hours because somehow the kidney—on its way by plane—got stuck at Newark Airport (turns out NO ONE is immune), everything went to plan.
When I eventually go back to see Doc, he’s still under intense anesthesia. He sees me and says one word to me—a word that’s ours—and it’s all I needed to hear.
He’s okay. We’re okay. And soon enough, we’ll be even better.
We’re more than two months out now, and I won’t lie and say the recovery has been perfect. There have been more ups than downs, though, and that’s what matters.
Plus, we’ve got the steadfast love of Mainers on our side. We know we can’t lose.
Here’s to a new chapter.
It’s go time.
Also, is it normal to hug a surgeon? I definitely did that. Told you, Most Dramatic.
