Kelly Finan wants to translate her love of children’s literature into a teaching career when she graduates from Vanderbilt May 8. But it is hard to imagine any book she could teach that could ever rival her own story. After suffering two strokes requiring brain surgery early in her undergraduate career at Vanderbilt due to a rare kidney disease, Finan’s kidneys failed. Despite more than 15 family members and friends volunteering to donate a kidney, none matched. And then the call came – a matching donor. The transplant took place Feb. 7, 2005. Finan met her donor shortly thereafter. Dan Romano had lost his three-year-old daughter exactly 20 years earlier, on Feb. 7, while she waited for a kidney. His daughter’s name? Kelly.
Contact: Emily Pearce and Amy Wolf, (615) 322-NEWS
emily.pearce@vanderbilt.edu
amy.wolf@vanderbilt.edu