While some couples stare longingly at each other over candle-lit diners for Valentine’s Day, James Jones and wife Melissa Degesso-Jones can exchange loving glances from across the operating room.
In the ultimate show of love, Melissa is giving her husband a kidney from Valentine’s Day.
After a long period of suffering with renal failure, James was told that he needed a kidney transplant
Melissa happened to be a perfect match.
‘There wasn’t any reservation, or never did I fathom the ideal I wouldn’t be,’ she said. ‘That’s the funny part. I never thought, ‘Oh, what if I don’t match?’ I just assumed I would.’
James said that to have his wife be a suitable donor was nothing short of a miracle.
Everything matched,’ he said. ‘It was just a gift from God.’
The pair will go into surgery Monday where Melissa’s kidney will be transplanted to James at Florida Hospital.
‘Melissa is making the rest of us look bad,’ said Dr. Giridhar Vedula, a multi-organ transplant surgeon. ‘Most of us buy an expensive box of candy and call it a day, but this girl is just something phenomenal.’
Now the pressure’s on James to find any gift that could measure up
It’s one of those things where I’ll continue to reciprocate this for the rest of my life, because you’ll never be able to give her anything that’s going to be able to match life,’ he told Orlando’s News 13.
For Melissa, Valentine’s Day is about ‘giving as much love as I have.’
It’s completely from my heart. James has said things to me about it being a huge sacrifice, and I said, ‘It’s not; it’s an investment. This is our life. It’s not just your life that I’m giving, too. There can’t be an ‘us’ without it.’ So, that’s what it’s about.’
As if all this weren’t romantic enough, guess what day the happy couple met for the first time two years ago?
Yep. Valentine’s Day