For years, Susanne and Dan Deegan of Sea Cliff have eaten at La Bussola, the Italian restaurant on School Street in Glen Cove. This past March, Susanne Deegan gave one of her kidneys to the man who runs its dining room, manager David Geliashvili. Northwell Health, which performed both operations, published the account of how it came together on November 10.

A birthday dinner and a question

The chain of events started in July of last year, when the Deegans went to La Bussola to mark Dan Deegan's 60th birthday. They knew Geliashvili well enough to notice he seemed less upbeat than usual, and when Susanne Deegan asked how he was doing, he told her he needed a kidney transplant. She offered on the spot to be tested.

Geliashvili, 51, came to the United States from the former Soviet republic of Georgia in 1999, settled in Locust Valley and went to work at the restaurant soon after. He also works in the budget office at Glen Cove City Hall. In the fall of 2024 he began feeling exhausted all the time, and one day he could not catch his breath. At the Glen Cove Hospital emergency department, doctors found fluid in his lungs and kidneys that had stopped working properly because of cysts, a condition called polycystic kidney disease. He was admitted and started dialysis right away: three sessions a week, each about three and a half hours long.

Why a living donor matters

Dialysis keeps a patient alive but does not fix the problem, and the national transplant list holds more than 90,000 people. According to Northwell, the wait for a kidney from a deceased donor can run up to five years, and dialysis puts heavy strain on the heart in the meantime. A living donor skips that line. Kidneys from living donors also tend to come from younger, healthier people and typically last about twice as long, Northwell's transplant surgeons explain.

Most living donors give to a relative. Only about 35 percent are unrelated to the person they help, according to figures Northwell cites from the American Journal of Transplantation. That is the gap the Northwell Transplant Institute's living donor ambassador program was built to close. Started in 2022, it pairs patients with a social worker who helps them work through their personal and professional networks to find a match. Northwell reports living donation across the health system is up 25 percent since the program began.

A town working the phones

Geliashvili's ambassador, social worker Libbie Binkiewicz, was the program's first. His search drew in the Rotary Club, the mayor of Glen Cove, friends and the restaurant itself, and it was through that network that the match with Deegan came together. She was assigned her own living donor nurse coordinator, went through blood type and tissue testing, a full health screening and the psychological evaluation every prospective donor completes, and was told she could change her mind at any point. She had already decided to donate either way: if her kidney had not matched, she planned to give through a paired exchange, in which incompatible donor and recipient pairs swap so that everyone receives a compatible organ.

Deegan had her own reason for stepping forward. Her father was on dialysis near the end of his life and died when she was 29. Geliashvili shares his birthday, April 2.

March 10 at North Shore University Hospital

On the morning of March 10, the two met at the hospital and went into neighboring operating rooms. Transplant surgeon Dr. Elliot Grodstein removed Deegan's kidney in a minimally invasive procedure through a small incision at her belly button, and transplant surgeon Dr. Aaron Winnick placed it in Geliashvili. The new kidney began working as soon as it was connected.

Deegan spent two nights in the hospital and was back at her communications job two weeks later. Geliashvili spent five nights in the hospital, now takes anti-rejection medication, and was cleared to return to La Bussola three months after the surgery. The day after the operation, his mother came to Deegan's room to thank her in person.

What a donor's life looks like after

People live full, active lives with one kidney, which is why it is an organ that can come from a living donor. Most donors are back to their usual routine within four to six weeks. Northwell advises donors to drink plenty of water, limit alcohol and avoid contact sports or wear protective gear.

Learning more, or finding La Bussola

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