TRAVERSE CITY, MI -- Armando Favela spends his life tied down. He is strapped to a dialyses machine more than three hours a day, three days a week. It’s a Burden that adds up to more than 22 days a year.
“It’s hard. It’s hard going to treatments, they are bad enough, and then thinking about that is all I’m going to do, be on treatments the rest of my life, its terrible,” Favela said.
But that is not Favela's fate. Yes, his diabetes persists and his kidneys are failing, but he has a secret weapon, a kidney donor.
“The truth is, it’s not very often in life that we're able to make an impact on someone's life for the better. I’m just blessed that god put me in this position to help him because that is what life is about…helping other people,” donor Larry Wakefield said.
Favela first met Wakefield at church. They are not related. In fact, the two were hardly even close friends.
“Before, we use to know each other but we never really had anything close, close relationship, but now I think about him everyday and ever night before I go to bed,” Favela said with a smile.
Favela calls Wakefield a gift from god. After all, it was not long ago the two men were practically strangers. Soon, they will be forever bound.
“God just put it in my heart, and I just believe that as human beings we need to reach out to one another and do the right thing. If my son or wife was sick, I would want somebody to come to their rescue and right now I’m in that position to do that for someone else,” said Wakefield.
Favela is now just five weeks away from his transplant. After three years of treatment, he knows exactly what he plans to do when he ditches the dialysis machine. “I like to work with my hands and do a lot of work. I want to start working again and I want to have that freedom to work without worrying about anything. I have grand children and I want to hang around them.”
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