NAPLES, Fla. (WSVN) — A Florida father gave his daughter life, and now a health scare has given her the opportunity to return the favor.
Dana Farengo-Clark said she’s always been close to her father, Vincent Farengo.
“Everybody has said from when I was little, ‘Oh, you look just like your dad,’ you know, ‘You’re a little Vin.'”
When Farengo’s kidney disease worsened a few years ago, that bond, and his life, were threatened.
“They told me, then, because of my age, that I wouldn’t be able to get on the transplant list,” he said.
Once an avid tennis player, Farengo’s only options were dialysis and the sedentary life that entailed, or to find a donor on his own.
His wife and other daughters weren’t a match, but Farengo-Clark was.
For months, though, Farengo refused to do the surgery.
“He just kept saying no, and that was actually making me really angry,” said Farengo-Clark.
“All I could think of was, ‘God forbid, something happens to Dana,'” said Farengo.
But Farengo said his daughter refused to take no for an answer.
“One day, we were talking, and she said, ‘Dad, I just want to tell you one thing. Forty-some odd years ago, you gave me life, and now it’s my turn to give it back to you, and you have to do this, because if you don’t, I won’t forgive you,'” he said.
Ten hours of surgery and a lot of hugs and tears later, Farengo got his kidney and his life back.
“I call her my guardian angel, and she gets mad at me,” said Farengo, “but she is, because she saved my life, literally.”
“Not only was it saving his life for him, and giving him his life back, but we would really miss him if he was gone,” said Farengo-Clark, “and now, like, that he walks around with a little piece of me kind of makes me smile.”
This father and daughter are now bonded for life, by the gift of life.
Since the surgery, Farengo said, his health has allowed him to continue traveling, and he is working out so he is able to play tennis again.
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