Three days before Valentine’s Day, a Florida woman gave her husband the most special gift of all – life.
On Monday, Melissa DeGeso-Jones had her kidney transplanted at Florida Hospital in Orlando to her husband, James Jones, who has been suffering from renal failure.
"(I’m) giving as much love as I have," DeGeso-Jones told Orlando’s News 13 before the surgery. "It's completely from my heart. James has said things to me about it being a huge sacrifice, and I said, 'It's not; it's an investment. This is our life. It's not just your life that I'm giving, too. There can't be an ‘us’ without it.' So, that's what it's about."
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The love between the couple from Lake Mary, Fla., who met two years ago on Valentine’s Day, impressed the surgeon who performed the procedure on Monday.
"Melissa is making the rest of us look bad," Dr. Giridhar Vedula told News 13. "Most of us buy an expensive box of candy and call it a day, but this girl is just something phenomenal."
When it was determined James needed a kidney transplant, Melissa immediately got her kidneys tested and was revealed to be a match for donation.
"There wasn't any reservation, or never did I ever fathom the idea I wouldn't be," she said. "That's the funny part. I never thought, 'Oh, what if I don't match?' I just assumed I would."
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James also knows that some roses or a nice dinner can’t exactly measure up to the Valentine’s Day gift he has been given by his wife this year.
"It's one of those things where I'll continue to reciprocate this for the rest of my life, because you'll never be able to give her anything that's going to be able to match life,'' James said.
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