DONATION

filtering properly.

The answer to her prayers, it turned out, lived more than 500 miles away in Columbus.

In early 2017, Jacobsen learned about Ebel’s need for a kidney via a Facebook post by Ebel’s mother, Deanna Griffith. Three years earlier, he had briefly lived in Iowa City, where he and Ebel — who had met in passing but barely knew each other — worked at different branches of the University of Iowa Credit Union.

Because he had plans to attend a wedding in Iowa City in October, Jacobsen decided to have his blood checked while there.

The odds of being a suitable donor seemed slim. Doctors had told Ebel that only 20 percent of the population worldwide might have O-positive blood type and also meet the requirements for her specific concoction of antibodies. Beyond that, she needed someone who was both healthy enough and willing to donate a kidney.

Two weeks after his trip to Iowa, Jacobsen — who co-owns Renovo Fitness, a gym in Hilliard — learned that he was a perfect match. Almost immediately, he agreed to help Ebel.

“From a moral standpoint, I don’t think there should be a scale of when we stop helping people,” he said of his decision. “If somebody needs the door opened, you open the door for them. If somebody’s life depends on something you can give, it’s not a hard decision to make. I guess I looked at it from a “why not?” perspective, and by no means were the “why nots?” bigger than the “whys?”

Having been told by doctors that she might wait seven years for a kidney, Ebel was stunned by the news.

“I bawled hysterically,” she said. “I called my sister. I called my mom. I called my co-workers and just cried. I called everybody I knew. I still, to Morgan Ebel and Bear Jacobsen, after the transplant operations, in their favorite photo of the two of them.

this day, can’t believe it.”

Her health problems date from early childhood when, at age 7, her kidney condition was misdiagnosed as strep throat. She would spend several years on dialysis until 2003, when her father, Wayne Ebel, donated a kidney for her first transplant. (Both of her original kidneys were removed.) Over time, her body began to reject the healthy organ, and doctors two years ago told her that she needed another transplant.

Griffith propelled her daughter to action. The two hung posters around Iowa City, made a bumper sticker for Griffith’s car and asked Facebook acquaintances to have their blood tested for a possible match.

The two estimate that they reached hundreds of people through the flyers and socialmedia posts.

Among them was Jacobsen, whose desire to help quickly fostered a bond with both Ebel and her mother.

After the October visit to Iowa City, Jacobsen twice more made the eight-hour drive from Columbus for additional testing, then one more time in March for the surgery. As a business owner with flexible hours, he was ableto secure the necessary time off work without a struggle.

As Griffith got to know her daughter’s donor, she saw his generous spirit and great sense of humor.

When she asked him why he would donate a kidney to a nearstranger, she said, he told her that he needed only one to live.

“What he did, it’s such an unselfish act,” Griffith said. “Maybe some people take it lightly, but I sure didn’t.”

Jacobsen didn’t take the kidney donation lightly but acknowledged that he might have been underprepared for the challenge of recovery.

“The thing I hadn’t thought about (is) it’s one of the only surgeries that you go into perfectly healthy and you leave ... not (healthy).”

He couldn’t lift a gallon of milk for a month, he said. In addition, he now must stay hydrated at all times and can no longer take ibuprofen, which can be toxic to kidneys.

His mother, Heather Jacobsen of Berkeley, California, initially had reservations about her son’s decision, but her perspective changed after she met Ebel before the operation.

“I was certainly desperate for her because she’s lovely,” Mrs. Jacobsen said.

After the surgery, Mrs. Jacobsen had just one piece of advice for her son: “I told him we were proud of him, and he should not do it again.”

Jacobsen, who has kept in contact with Ebel since the transplant, remains confident that he did the right thing in donating the kidney.

“I made a little mental checklist and, when it came down to how badly she needed it and how much she deserved it, and how badly I needed it,” he said, “it wasn’t a hard choice to make.”