Father’s touching response at discovering his daughter was his secret kidney donor goes viral

‘This experience has been incredible and I would do it over again if it meant saving my dads life,’ the woman wrote on TikTok

A woman has gone viral after sharing her father’s touching response when he discovered that she was his secret kidney donor.

In a video posted to TikTok last month, Delayne, @delayne_i, shared a clip of herself telling her father, John, the big news. The caption of her post read: “Watch my dad find out that I was his anonymous kidney donor after keeping it a secret for 8 months…grab a tissue!”

The video began with Delayne walking into her father’s hospital room, as she was wearing a gown and had an IV attached to her arm. As she approached him, he responded: “Oh my god, are you kidding me?”

John then looked at the camera with tears in his eyes. His daughter stood next to him and reassured him that she was “OK”.

Throughout the clip, Delayne continued to comfort her father and hold his hand. As he was crying and held his hand towards his face, he said: “I knew you were up to something.” She then responded with: “I’m always up to something.”

He went on to wipe the tears from eyes and asked Delayne how she was doing. She continued to reassure him that she was “fine”.

She also addressed the money that she wanted to raise for their surgeries in the text over the video: “If 6,000 people Venmoed me $1, I could cover the cost for my kidney transplant to my dad.”

The following day, she shared a second video with an update on her and her father’s health. The clip included a series of photos taken from their stay at the hospital.

“We both finally get to go home!” she wrote in the caption. “Dad is doing wonderful and I’m trying to catch up to him with my well-being. This has been a long, painful journey but going home is going to help us heal better. This experience has been incredible and I would do it over again if it meant saving my dads life.”

As of 1 March, Delayne’s videos have more than 4.5m views. Many TikTok users wrote in the comments why she might have kept her kidney donation a secret.

“It’s true, most parents would never take an organ from their child. Just in case something ever happened to them,” one wrote.

“He wouldn’t have taken it if he had known,” another added.

A third added: “You’re amazing. That’s a lot for dad to process.. we never want our children to sacrifice for us. Bless you both!”

Other viewers expressed how they could relate to Delayne’s experience.

“This is so special. My dad is a kidney transplant recipient and it has completely changed our lives. You’re an angel,” one wrote.

“Today is my four year anniversary of my donation to my dad!!! Congrats! You’re a true blessing!” another added.

Last week, Delayne started a GoFundMe to cover the cost of her and her father’s medical bills. As of 1 March, she’s surpassed her $5,000 goal, receiving a total of $12,357 from 535 donations.

During an interview with KMOV, Delayne, who’s based in Missouri, noted that she first thought about the kidney donation last year. At the time, her father was diagnosed with an Immunoglobulin A Deficiency, which caused his body’s immune system to attack his kidneys.

“So, for over a year, he’s been hooked up to a machine for three four five hours a day. It’s not the right quality of life I don’t think anyone should have to live in.” she explained. “So, then my first thought was, why can’t he just have my kidney right now.

Although John told the news outlet that he was against kidney donation since his daughter was “too young,” Delayne still opted to go through with the operation in secret.

“I don’t even know how I got his coordinator’s phone number, and I reached out to her, and I was like, ‘Hey, how can I do this, when can we start,’” she said. “And then as soon as he was good enough basically for the transplant, they started running me through a bunch of tests.”

John went on to describe how he felt when discovering this secret, explaining: “I didn’t find out until the day of surgery after we were post-op. She opened the door and came through and I was just like oh my lord.”

The Independent has contacted Delayne for comment.