Hoffman Estates postal carrier honored for kidney donation

Arlene Hoffman said she's not much of a giving person, but the village officials who held a reception for her on Monday night at Hoffman Estates village hall beg to differ.

The soon-to-be-55-year-old postal carrier works at the Hoffman Estates post office. She loves her customers she sees daily while dropping off mail in Hoffman Estates and Schaumburg.

Jane Delimba, a 49-year-old suffering from diabetes and close to kidney failure, once was one of those customers.

Though Hoffman delivered mail to Delimba for only three months and hadn't seen her in seven years, Hoffman agreed to make a most special delivery she donated a kidney to Delimba.

“It was a very moving and very generous thing for her to do,” Hoffman Estates Mayor William McLeod said Monday. “It's unbelievable she's an extraordinary lady.”

The surgeries happened on Sept. 16 at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Doctors released Hoffman the next day; she said she was back driving and delivering mail on Sept. 18. Hoffman shrugs off her good deed, and said she would have offered her kidney to any of her customers.

“You can function just as well with just one,” she said.

She used her allotment of sick days to take the train to Chicago for her medical tests. She needed blood tests, EKGs and had to pass a physical. She was at the hospital once every three weeks. It's not like she needed the sick days Hoffman said she doesn't even take aspirin.

“I don't need it,” she said.

It was chance that led to Hoffman and Delimba meeting in April. Hoffman last delivered mail to Delimba seven years ago. During the mail drop-offs, Delimba told Hoffman about her ailments and her need for a kidney.

Flash forward to April, when Hoffman bumped into Delimba at the Walmart off Barrington Road in Streamwood.

“She recognized my voice, she goes ‘hey, how are you doing?'” Hoffman said.

Hoffman asked if Delimba received her transplant. Then she asked what would it take for her to be a donor and gave Delimba her phone number. Hoffman said Delimba left the store in tears, happy about Hoffman's generosity.

“She just needed it,” Hoffman said, repeatedly, clearly not wanting to make her deed a big deal.

Hoffman and Delimba's blood weren't a match, so doctors found two other donors for cross-matches. They conducted the four surgeries and everyone remains healthy. She urges anyone considering donating a kidney to investigate the process.

“I know it's a big deal to the recipient, but to me it's nothing,” Hoffman said.

Hoffman grew up in Roselle. And yes, Hoffman Estates officials were enthusiastic in recognizing her, given her last name, and all.