'Forever family' to meet at last
NYPD detective gave Pa. ma his kidney
NYPD Detective Michael Lollo and Pennsylvania mom Ruth Tisak have never met — but they are forever connected.
In fact, their first formal interaction of any kind came on social media.
“Hello Ruth. It seems you might have gotten my left kidney,” Lollo wrote to Tisak on Facebook, a few weeks after the December 2018 transplant surgery that saved Tisak’s life.
Now, Lollo and Tisak are set to meet for the first time Wednesday, before a Mets game at Citi Field — their first in-person meeting.
“I just am so eager to meet him for the very first time,” Tisak told The Post.
She said her retired Marine husband, Paul, has always been her hero, “and now I have another hero — a New York City detective.”
Lollo, 46, was first inspired to give after reading a Post story about a Times Square billboard seeking a kidney for a Long Island dad. Though Lollo wasn’t a match for that man, he decided to donate to a stranger — who turned out to be Tisak, a 61-yearold Pittsburgh mom who had only 10 percent of her kidney function left after a 7-year illness.
“He was just gonna do it and give it to me no matter what,” said Tisak, explaining how Lollo patiently waited to donatee the organ two weeks past the initiallyscheduleduled surgery as she got overer a 103.8-degree fe-fever. “He was waiting for me to give it toto meme —— not even knowing me as a person,n, not even seeing my picture.” e.”
Both h organ donors and recipients are typically kept anonymous through the program, but Tisak’s husband had a hint her donor was Lollo through a little detective work of his own. “When we found out my kidney was coming from New York, [my husband] kind of Googled the kidney donation and read about Michael — not knowing my kidney is coming from him,” recalled Tisak. “My husbandhusband was like, ‘I would bet yyou every penny we hahave in the savings this iis him.’ ” Their su suspicions were conf confirmed a few weeks after the surgery, whwhen Lollo accepted th their Facebookbook friend rerequest. In the months since since, they’ve e exchanged w warm text messages — “He would always sign, ‘Forever connected,’ ” said Tisak — and family vacation photos, despite never meeting in person or even talking over the phone.
“He texts me a lot just to check on me and how I’m doing with his beautiful kidney, always making sure I’m in perfect health, not because of his kidney, but he truly cares for me now,” said Tisak. “We will forever be connected.”
The depth of that connection has grown to be something closer to family, said Tisak.
“He’s sent me pictures of his wife, his kids, of them, their vacation . . . He’s one of us now. Michael is a part of the family.”
At Wednesday’s Mets game against the San Diego Padres, family will finally meet.
“It seems like we’re old friends, even though we’ve never spoken before,” said Lollo. “I’m definitely very excited to meet her.”