- When Erin Wheeler’s kidney (donated by her dad when she was 10), began to fail, her mother, Julia Catalano, wanted to donate her’s — but she wasn’t a good match
- This kicked off a chain of organ donation: A stranger, Eve Alden, donated her kidney to Wheeler, enabling Catalano to donate her kidney to a stranger. Since then, six people have received transplants
- The Wheelers “will always be a part of my family,” Alden tells us.
After donating part of her liver to a friend of a friend in June 2023, Eve Alden wanted to give more.
At her one-year post transplant checkup, Alden asked if she could be tested to be a kidney donor. Thirteen days later, she donated her kidney to a stranger — and started a kidney swapping chain that has since benefited six people.
“I always want to help people,” says Alden, 41, who’s employed in a dental office in Pittsburgh doing administrative work and marketing.
The transplant took place on August 6, 2024. At her one-week post-op appointment, doctors asked Alden if she wanted to meet her kidney recipient. “She’s dying to meet you,” the surgeon told her.
Alden said yes and was introduced to Erin Wheeler.
“It was immediate tears and hugs,” Alden recalls. “Erin’s dad gave me the biggest hug, and said, ‘Thank you for saving my baby.’”
(From left:) Erin Wheeler, her aunt Diane Striegel, her mother Julia Catalano, and father Jim Wheeler.
Julia Catalano
Wheeler’s father, James Wheeler, a 70-year-old retired police officer, had actually given his daughter one of his kidneys in February 1990.
When she was 5, Erin had been diagnosed with a congenital abnormality causing reflux in her kidneys. At age 10, she needed a kidney transplant, and her parents (who were divorced), both volunteered. “My dad was adamant,” recalls Wheeler, a 45-year-old senior career consultant at the University of Pittsburgh. “He really, really wanted to donate.”
In December 2023, Wheeler was told the kidney her father had given her was failing and that she would need another kidney transplant.
“I burst into tears,” she says. “I thought I was invincible. Everything was going so great for so long. I thought, ‘I’ll just keep being the anomaly and I’ll just keep being this warrior.’ It was shocking.”
Her mother, Julia Catalano, a 70-year-old registered nurse, immediately volunteered to donate her kidney.
Erin Wheeler with her mother, Julia Catalano.
Julia Catalano
And while Catalano proved to be a match for her daughter — she’s blood type O, a universal donor — doctors wanted Wheeler to have a younger kidney that would last longer. So they suggested a kidney swap — where Catalano would donate to another waiting recipient, and Alden would give her kidney to Wheeler.
“That was a little tough at first for both of us, maybe me a little bit more — because you want to do it directly,” admits Catalano, whose kidney went to a stranger that was closer to her in age; while Alden— who had proven a perfect match — donated to Wheeler.
Both surgeries were performed at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center on the same day, August 6. Catalano and Wheeler checked into the hospital together; Catalano went into surgery first. They said goodbye, they cried. “Then I waited,” Wheeler says.
The surgeries all went well.
“Everything went perfect all around,” says surgeon Dr. Amit Tevar, 50, surgical director of the kidney and pancreas transplant program at UPMC.
Dr. Amit D. Tevar performed the surgery at the University of Pittsburgh.
UPMC
They kicked off an “open chain,” says Tevar, meaning that when Alden was able to replace Catalano as Wheeler’s donor, that left Catalano available to donate to another recipient; and their donor in turn donated to someone else, and so on.
“Eve is maybe the most effervescent, altruistic human being I’ve ever met in my life,” adds Tevar. “So far in this open chain, we’ve had six transplants done, all because of one very, very special donor.”
A week after the surgery, Alden was having her checkup when Tevar asked her if she wanted to meet the woman who received her kidney.
“Eve did it just out of the goodness of her heart,” Wheeler says. “It was really special and really just very selfless. We say that Eve is just like this angel on earth. She’s just amazing.”
A week after the surgery, Erin Wheeler (right) and her mother Julia Catalano were able to go for a boat ride on Conneaut Lake in Penn.
Julia Catalano
Alden was back at work a week after her laparoscopic kidney donation, and ran a half marathon in October. And while she can no longer donate another organ (only blood and plasma), she is sharing her story to help educate and encourage others to become a living donor.
She and Wheeler have also become friends on social media. They text — and have talked about getting together for coffee.
“She and her family, I feel, will always be a part of my family,” Alden says. “I’m sure that they would say the same.”
