Donate a kidney to a stranger? Sure, Lakemoor police officer says

Imagine reading a Facebook post and deciding to donate a kidney to a stranger.

Crazy? Not for 27-year-old Nicole Gaborek, a Lakemoor police officer who did exactly that in December.

"She just kind of decided, 'Eh, I just think I'll donate a kidney,'" said the recipient, Navy veteran Rachel Schultz, 31, of Belvidere. "That's amazing."

Gaborek said she saw a July Facebook post by Rockford radio station 95.3 The Bull that detailed Schultz's plight. "I felt a kinship with her," Gaborek said.

Both love cats, traveling and spending time with friends. Both had traveled to South Africa and are big readers.

Gaborek signed up for testing and found she was a match.

She and Schultz met a day after the Dec. 4 surgery at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Nearly eight weeks after surgery, both said they feel great.

Schultz, who works as an engineer for Baxter International in Round Lake, was in the hospital for three days. Gaborek was released the day after surgery and was in the gym doing cardio six days later. Both were back at work in just over four weeks.

Life has turned around, Schultz said. Last year, she was working full time, doing dialysis after work four times a week, running errands when she could, but mostly being very, very tired. "I didn't have much of a life," she said.

Schultz was diagnosed in 2016 with IgA nephropathy, or Berger's disease. She began looking for a donor shortly after starting dialysis in 2018 - it takes five to eight years via the kidney transplant list, she said - spreading the message via bumper stickers, flyers, T-shirts and email.

Schultz said she took the news of a potential donor "with a grain of salt," because donors often don't qualify or back out. Another stranger had expressed interest but never circled back, she said. She's an only sibling, and her best friend and relatives were disqualified because of health factors, she said.

When Gaborek announced her intention to donate a kidney, her mother was shocked but quickly became supportive, she said. Her father is a retired firefighter/paramedic from Des Plaines, so "no medical stuff really concerns him all that much," she said.

Gaborek said she regularly donated blood platelets and registered as a bone marrow donor, but never had surgery. The thought did give her last-minute jitters, she acknowledged.

All surgery costs for both women were covered by Medicare because Schultz was in stage 5 kidney failure. Illinois has special protections for organ donors: employers can't retaliate if people ask for time off and insurance companies can't decline, limit coverage or raise insurance costs.

Gaborek said her reward is seeing Schultz have a normal life, like being able to eat cheese and chocolate that were once off-limits.

So what would Gaborek say to someone who is considering donating a kidney? "That it's easier than you could imagine."

Schultz said it's still hard to wrap her mind around it all. "You hope that you can find someone like that ... but it's kind of surreal."

Do you know any Suburban Heroes? Share your story at heroes@dailyherald.com.