When a Florida woman stumbled upon a Facebook page created in support of a 2-year-old who suffers from a rare genetic disorder that affects the kidneys, she felt the urge to get involved.
So Christy Harding reached out to the children's hospital in Minnesota where the toddler was being treated to see if there was anything she could do. There was: Arianna Moore needed a kidney and, as luck would have it, Harding was a match, according to ABC News.
While Harding may have been a complete stranger who lived more than 1,500 miles away, she was compelled to do what she could to help save the 2-year-old girl's life. That's why, on May 7, the 37-year-old will travel to Minneapolis to donate one of her kidneys to Arianna, WKRN-TV reported.
"I have a 2-year-old daughter, and that's probably one of the biggest reasons," Harding told KMSP-TV to explain the reasoning behind her decision. "When my husband and I were talking, we knew that if it were her, we would want everyone in the world to try and save her."
Diagnosed with diffuse mesangial sclerosis shortly after birth, Arianna has undergone dialysis for about 10 hours a day, every day, for the past two years. Though her kidneys failed when Arianna was about 7 weeks old, none of the potential donors, including Arianna's blood relatives, were a match. So Arianna's family turned to social media to share her plight.
Now, nearly two years later, Harding has answered their call and offered up her own kidney for donation.
"Christy emailed me to let me know she was the one donating," Arianna's mother, Ashley Booth, told ABC News. "I was in tears reading her email to me. It was pretty crazy. All I can do is cry every time I think about it."
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