Ellen DeGeneres, Aaron Rodgers Surprise Fan After She Donated Kidney to Her 4-Year-Old Student

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| October 11, 2016 | By Margo Gothelf

When Dena Carreyn and her family went on a nationwide search for a kidney, they never thought they would find a donor just around the corner.

Carreyn’s 4-year-old daughter, Lyla, suffers from a condition called Microscopic Polyangiitis (or MPA). MPA causes Lyla’s kidneys to fail and requires her to be hooked up to a dialysis machine for 10 to 12 hours each day, leaving the 4-year-old in desperate need for a kidney transplant.

In a twist of fate, Carreyn got the incredible news that her daughter’s preschool teacher, Beth Battista, was a match. After hearing about the good news, Carreyn wrote into The Ellen Show hoping to share her story and give the ultimate thanks to Battista.

“How do you possibly thank someone for saving your child’s life? I would love for Beth to meet one of her biggest inspirations — you,” Carreyn said in the letter to Ellen DeGeneres.

Before DeGeneres read the letter out loud, she shared with the audience that “this may be one of the sweetest, most selfless stories you’ll ever hear.”

During the segment, Carreyn recapped their incredible search for the kidney.

“First of all, it was crazy, because we had people getting tested from California to Virginia [and] everywhere in between, nobody was a match,” she explained. “Beth wasn’t even our daughter’s teacher at the time when she started getting tested. And they randomly got put in the same classroom this fall. So the universe just converged to make it happen.”

After hearing about the one-of-a-kind story, DeGeneres found a special way to thank Battista for her astonishing act of kindness. DeGeneres was able to get NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers from the Green Bay Packers to record a special message to Battista, thanking her for her heartwarming act. Rodgers also invited Battista to a game at Lambeau Field.