The trip of a lifetime

Edward Dachille took his daughter on a tour of Italy for her 16th birthday. But this wasn't an ordinary Sweet 16. This trip could not have happened if it were not for a trip that Edward took the year prior.

On Aug. 9, 2007, at 4:30 a.m., the Dachilles' phone rang in New York. Edward was getting ready for work, and his wife answered. "We have to go," she said. "They found you a kidney."

Edward, who also owns a home in Bonita Springs, had been on waiting lists at various transplant centers for 2½ years. He learned about The Transplant Center at Southwest Florida Regional Medical Center — now part of Gulf Coast Medical Center — while receiving dialysis in Bonita Springs and got on the list in May 2007.

The Transplant Center has one of the shortest wait lists in the nation. On average, in the U.S., patients wait 37 months for a new kidney. At The Transplant Center they wait an average of 13 to 15 months.

"We just rolled," Edward said. "We flew through the airport." They were bumped to first class. Once seated on the plane, Edward looked at his wife and said, "Hon, do you believe it's only 6:30?"

The Dachilles landed in Florida and took a car from the airport to the hospital. They arrived in front of the emergency department at 10 a.m.

He was transplanted at 7 p.m. The staff made Edward feel so comfortable he says that he almost didn't feel like this major event was happening. "I just knew everything would be OK. I had known for years," he says.

The next day Edward's wife received the news that her father had passed. Edward told her that she needed to get on a plane and get home. "My thing was to recuperate, so she could lean on me."

The whole time that he had been on dialysis, Edward's daughter knew that he couldn't travel. After the transplant she said, "Dad, now you can go anywhere."

He asked her where she wanted to go for her birthday, and she told him Italy. So they celebrated his one-year anniversary after the transplant with a toast in Italy.