{"id":385710,"date":"2026-07-24T23:40:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T23:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/385710\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T23:40:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T23:40:14","slug":"viral-tiktok-helps-texas-man-find-life-saving-kidney-donor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/385710\/","title":{"rendered":"Viral TikTok helps Texas man find life-saving kidney donor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TikTok \"TikTok <\/p>\n

DALLAS – A viral TikTok post did more than rack up views, it helped save a life.<\/p>\n

After seeing a Cedar Hill man’s plea for a kidney, a Houston woman answered the call.<\/p>\n

Viral TikTok plea leads to life-saving kidney donor \"\" <\/p>\n

What we know:<\/p>\n

Ishmael Thorns of Cedar Hill was facing kidney failure when he turned to TikTok in a last-ditch effort to find a donor.<\/p>\n

“My blood type is B positive. You know what I’m saying. I got two young sons. I’m in the Dallas area. I need a kidney, man. Share this post,” Thorns said in the video.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

A rare tumor on Thorns’ adrenal gland caused high blood pressure for years. No one in his family was a match, and having the relatively rare B-positive blood type made it more difficult to find a donor.<\/p>\n

Brandy Laman, a pharmacist in Houston, saw the video and immediately reached out.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

“I just really saw this as an opportunity to help someone in a life-changing way,” Laman said. “A similar situation happened with our family. My husband was diagnosed with leukemia in 2024, and he actually received a bone marrow transplant from a gentleman in Germany. So I just really wanted to pay it forward.”<\/p>\n

Kidney transplant surgery <\/p>\n

Dig deeper:<\/p>\n

On July 7, Dr. Christie Gooden at Methodist Dallas Medical Center successfully performed the kidney transplant.<\/p>\n

“This is one of the reasons I went into transplant, because of stories like this, because there’s so much more that we have in common than we don’t,” Gooden said.<\/p>\n

About two and a half weeks after surgery, Thorns said he is grateful for his second chance at life.<\/p>\n

“I’m feeling great. I feel rejuvenated. I feel like a new man. I feel grateful to start this new chapter of my life,” he said.<\/p>\n

Thorns called Laman “my hero.”<\/p>\n

“She’s my hero, an angel sent straight from God to bless me with a new chance at life,” Thorns said.<\/p>\n

\"\" Looking for a living kidney donor <\/p>\n

What’s next:<\/p>\n

Thorns said his advice to others waiting for a transplant is not to be afraid to put themselves out there and ask for help.<\/p>\n

Doctors also said patients do not always have to find a direct match to receive a transplant. Hospitals can coordinate paired kidney donations, allowing incompatible donor-recipient pairs to exchange kidneys with other pairs so more patients can receive a transplant.<\/p>\n

The Source: Information in this article was provided by FOX 4’s Eden Checkol.<\/p>\n

Texas<\/a>Health<\/a>Dallas<\/a>Cedar Hill<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS – A viral TikTok post did more than rack up views, it helped save a life. After…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1302,102,581,584,223,27,29,28,216,393],"class_list":["post-385710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-cedar-hill","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-county","tag-health","tag-news","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-tx","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}