The mother of a local NHL star was the donor a Seaforth man was looking for.
Graham Nesbitt, 65, made national headlines after receiving a kidney donated by Bonnie O'Reilly, mother of St. Louis Blues captain Ryan O'Reilly in an act of 'paying it forward' that would make any Midwestern Ontario hockey parent blush.
In 2006, Nesbitt was diagnosed with IgA nephropathy, also known as Berger's disease. He says medication and a healthy diet kept the condition under control until 2019 when a transplant was needed.
Nesbitt tells CKNX "It got so bad that we chose which dialysis to go on. From there I got on a transplant list looking for a donor".
A student at Central Huron Secondary School offered to help, making a video explaining that a kidney donor was needed to save Nesbitt's life.
Enter the mother of two NHL players with an offer to help.
https://twitter.com/icedoctr16/status/1367870432733446152
Bonnie O'Reilly began the process of applying upon the call for a donor, and Nesbitt says "(She) put her name in, they called her back and while COVID-19 slowed us down a bit, we got the tests completed and they told her they were a match".
Bonnie then contacted Nesbitt saying "she gave me the good news and asked me if I could make it that day to get the procedure completed".
"I didn't have to think too long" Nesbitt chuckled.
https://twitter.com/StLouisBlues/status/1367317069612552192
The connection between the two stretches back several years, with Nesbitt saying he and Bonnie's wife Brian O'Reilly "started a hockey school back in 1993. Brian was involved with the Dave McLiwain hockey school as an off-ice instructor. Cal and Ryan both eventually came through the school".
This continued into the O'Reilly brothers teenage years, when ice time started to become a premium. Nesbitt would let Cal and Ryan in with some other boys just after 6:30 a.m., but with some rules...
"I let the O'Reilly kids in, but they weren't the only ones. Tons of kids got to skate, but we had rules. They had to be done by 8:30 because they had to go to school. I didn't tell the parents if they were misbehaving, but the kids knew the consequences. It was good, they got to respect the arena".
Nesbitt says it's important to him "because my dad died when I was 10. They tell you it takes a community to raise a child, well I was one of them".
With the procedure now complete, both are back home resting and recovering. Nesbitt says Bonnie O'Reilly "is a good person that I owe, There's nothing I can do to say thank you enough to her and the rest of the O'Reilly family".