Mayor’s kidney works well in Canadian

Oak Harbor Mayor Scott Dudley saved a man’s life last week and now he’s home recuperating in bed.

Dudley is the hero of the international incident with a happy ending. He traveled to Vancouver General Hospital in Canada last week to donate one of his kidneys to a critically ill man. He finally met the recipient, Philip Rosario, just a few days before the surgery.

A week later, they are both doing well.

“My kidney is working extremely well for him,” Dudley said in a phone interview.

Dudley decided to give his kidney to Rosario after hearing his wife speak at a Rotary meeting he happened to attend in British Columbia. Rosario suffered from polycystic kidney disease and faced a decade on a waiting list for a new kidney. Miraculously, Dudley was a near-perfect match as a donor.

A TV crew from a Canadian news station followed Dudley into surgery. The Global BC story shows Dudley during the surgery as well as his detached kidney. The four-part series on Dudley’s gift can be viewed online. The latest story has an extremely long web address, but can be found by Googling “Washington state man donates kidney.”

The doctors sent Dudley home after two days in the hospital, but Rosario remains so doctors can keep a close eye on him. Dudley said the suture pain is intense when he walks around, which doctors instructed him to do daily.

“Not a whole lot of running and dancing, that’s for sure,” he said.

Dudley has to go back up to British Columbia Thursday to get a check-up from doctors, but he said there were no complications and he’s healing fine.

The mayor said he plans to return to work at City Hall in the middle of next week and will be back wielding the gavel for the first City Council meeting in June.

“Would I do it again? Absolutely,” he said, adding that he’s now on the list for bone marrow donors and is awaiting a call.

 

Contact Whidbey News Times Assistant editor Jessie Stensland at jstensland@whidbeynewsgroup.com or 360.675.6611 ext. 5056.

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