When a Daughter Just Won't Take No for an Answer

It’s a tough thing as a parent when you give your kids advice and they simply ignore it – but for John Ivanowski his daughter’s stubbornness was a matter of life and death.

John has always been an active guy, he loves to run and walk with the family dog, but two years ago he was diagnosed with a serious form of kidney disease and he’s been on dialysis ever since - for up to five hours a day, four days a week.

His daughter, Delayne, who is 25 offered her dad a kidney but he flat out refused. Delayne’s brother passed away about 16 years ago from a rare cancer and John said he’d already lost one child and couldn’t bare the thought of anything happening to his daughter.

Delayne had other plans. She told ABC News she just had to find a way, 'I'm going to do it. I don't care how mad he is at me. I don't care if he kicks me out of the house or hates me or doesn't say a word to me for the rest of my life. At least he'll be living a good life and not hooked up to a machine."

John never knew who was on the other end of the paperwork when his transplant coordinator called him at work a few months ago and said, “John, we’ve got an anonymous donor who wants to give you a kidney.”

It was a 9 month process for Delayne to secretly donate a kidney to her father – and the two went through a successful surgery just about two weeks ago. The hospital even made sure they were in separate recovery areas so John wouldn’t see his daughter – that is, until she walked into his hospital room in a matching gown.

John looks at his wife and says softly, “Are you kidding me?” but he can barely say anything else through is shocked tears. He says now that he feels so much better and wouldn’t change a thing, he’s grateful for his daughter – even if she didn’t follow his original wishes.

Delayne for her part says, “I’m not very good at being told no.”   

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