She Asked For A Kidney At A Hockey Game - Months Later We Have Amazing News

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She Asked For A Kidney At A Hockey Game - Months Later We Have Amazing News

Pittsburgh Penguins - Twitter

It was not the kind of message you normally see at a hockey game.

While Kelly Sowatsky was decked out in Pittsburgh Penguins gear at a home game last April, the sign she held up had nothing to do with sports.

The 31-year-old was asking strangers to donate an organ, waving a bright yellow sign that read, "Calling all hockey fans! I need a kidney! Kidney! Kidney!"

She signed the message, "Gratefully yours, Kelly," and included her phone number at the bottom.

Sowatsky revealed to NHL.com that an infection had turned into blood poisoning years earlier, severely damaging one of her kidneys.

She spent years waiting on the donor list, before deciding to take matters into her own hands earlier this year.

"I thought this was my last chance to get the attention of somebody in a really big way," she told Good Morning America this week.

Sowatsky had actually held up the sign during practice at another game in New Jersey the same week. But her lucky break came at a Penguins home game, when she was spotted by the team's new media director, Andi Perelman.

Pittsburgh Penguins Kidney
Fellow Penguins fan Jeff Lynn offered his kidney to Sowatsky.Jeff Lynn

A photo Perelman snapped of Sowatsky's sign quickly went viral online, and it wasn't long before another Penguins fan living in Delaware, Jeff Lynn, 35, reached out to Sowatsky.

"I saw desperation, I saw courage and I saw she needed help," he explained. "I knew that my blood type matched. I had this feeling it was something I just had to do."

It seemed like Sowatsky and Lynd were destined to cross paths, because along with their shared love for the Penguins, they are also both teachers.

Earlier this month, doctors at the UPM Montefiore Hospital in Pittsburgh successfully completed the organ transplant, and both Sowatsky and her generous donor are recovering well.

Pittsburgh Penguins Kidney
Sowatsky and Lynn are both doing well after the transplant.Lisa Colombo - Facebook

Sowatsky's kidney function, which was at only 9 percent before her surgery, is now reportedly up to 99 percent.

"Jeff had an excellent kidney to donate," Dr. Amit Tevar told GMA. "Kelly should do very well for a very, very long time with that kidney."

While Sowatsky's story is going viral again as proof that sometimes we all get a lucky break, even she is stunned by her story's happy ending.

"He literally saved my life," she said of Lynn.

I don't typically participate in #ManCrushMonday, but I am seriously missing this man of mine today! 😍😍😍

Posted by Kelly Parkes Sowatsky on Monday, November 26, 2018

"And the doctors, too. If you trickle it down, the Pittsburgh Penguins are the reason my life is being saved, too. If it weren't for [Perelman] and for me loving the Penguins..."

And Sowatsky's organ even has a name inspired by the unique story behind it.

She calls it "Sidney the Kidney," after the Penguins' captain Sidney Crosby.

[H/T: ABC News]

Stories like this remind us that the world isn't so bad after all!

I write about all sorts of things for Shared, especially weird facts, celebrity news, and viral stories.