Thrissur: It happened 30 years ago. Then Josephine’s husband, Antony, contracted cancer. And for about two years, till he died in a hospital, Josephine was destined to a life in hospital, that too with two young daughters.
Later, her world changed: she got her husband’s job in South Indian Bank, and her daughters got married in the next 30 years. Josephine was not willing to brood over her husband’s demise. On holidays, she visited patients in hospitals and helped them.
Once she retired from the bank’s Nehru Nagar branch in November, she decided to return something good to the world. She approached the Kidney Federation of India and gave the consent to donate the organ.
It was then decided to gift the organ to Kallarakkal Varghese Antony, a 35-year-old man from Kanjirappalli, who was waiting for a B-positive kidney. A kidney transplant was necessary to keep Antony, who has a two-year-old child, alive, and Josephine became a messenger of life for him. Following surgery on Monday at Lisie Hospital in Ernakulam, Josephine’s kidney began to work in Antony. The surgery was led by Dr Damodaran Nambiar.
Though her children and friends initially opposed the donation of her kidney, they agreed to it on her insistence. Antony returned the favour by granting the amount needed for a kidney transplant to a poor patient. He received the kidney after the other surgery got over.