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Colerain Township woman meets her kidney donor

Posted at 7:22 PM, Apr 14, 2017
and last updated 2017-04-15 07:43:14-04

COLERAIN TOWNSHIP, Ohio -- A Colerain Township woman says her miracle has arrived.

Ann Mills was diagnosed in October with polycystic kidney disease and was in desperate need of a kidney transplant. She and her family took matters into their own hands and posted signs around town in hopes of finding a donor.

EARLIER: Colerain woman hopes for a life-saving Christmas gift

Now, Mills has some good news. She's scheduled to get a transplant and she just met her donor.

Mills was just weeks away from going on dialysis when she got a call from Christ Hospital.

"You hope for, you believe in it but, oh my God, it's really here," she said.

The transplant team had found a match. Strangely, Mills said she had a dream about it the night before.

"I was with a group and the hand and the voice said, 'You need a kidney transplant, you need to move over there,'" she said.

Robin Delnoce lives about an hour away from Mills, but she happened to see one of the signs Mills' family put up while on the way to a doctor's appointment. She wrote the information down, called Christ Hospital, and soon found out Mills would be getting one of her kidneys.

"I immediately started crying," Delnoce said. "My husband and daughter came rushing in, and they are crying, and nobody even knows Ann."

Delnoce said the decision to donate was an easy one.

"I look at things I can't control, I have no power over: friends dying of cancer, political situations around the world," she said. "I was fortunate enough to have a kidney that I can give up to someone, and I have power in this."

Mills wanted to meet her donor before the surgery. Christ Hospital passed on the message for her.

"I got this message on Facebook from Robin, and it says something about 'we have a date at Christ Hospital together,'" she said.

The two met each other at a restaurant with their families by their sides.

"I just looked at her and said, 'I think I have something for you.' We hugged," Delnoce said. "We cried and I said, 'OK, we are done crying.'"

Now the surgey Mills has waited for is only about three weeks away.

"We now have a whole new arm, a new part of our family," she said. "It's seriously life-changing, and nothing is going to change that."

Both women and their families are having Easter dinner together this weekend.

Delnoce is moving to Florida soon, but she said Mills is not losing her, but simply gaining a beach house.