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Match Made in Heaven

Diane’s first words about her husband are: “I knew of John long before he knew of me.”

There’s a good reason for this uneven timing in introductions. In 1971, while in grad school at Marquette, Diane bought a ticket for a Green Bay Packers game, donned a trashbag to keep the rain off, and watched rookie running back John Brockington tack on some of the more than 1,000 yards he would rush for that season. A true Packer fan, Diane followed John’s career, watching every game—even while in labor with her twin daughters.

But she was not one to stand in line to ask for an autograph, so she never met her hero. She received her English degree and in 1986 moved with her first husband to San Diego. The marriage dissolved seven years later. “I was out on my own,” she remembers. She began teaching at UCSD, and her favorite location for grading papers was a sandwich shop in Little Italy. As she paid her bill one day, the owner noticed her Packers keychain and mentioned John Brockington lived in the area. Diane didn’t believe him until “John stuck his head in and said hi. I was just stoked.”

“We became friends,” says John. “Just friends. We went to games, dinners, movies. It helped that she liked sports. She even had season tickets to SDSU games.”

They were wary of romance, though. Diane had just come out of a 22-year marriage while John had been divorced since 1979. Religion was also an obstacle. Diane, a Catholic from birth, could not remarry because of her divorce.

Even so, their relationship started to shift, and they began seeing themselves as more than friends. Then changes in doctrine caused Diane to reevaluate her participation in Catholicism. She began going to various places of worship, including John’s church. But they weren’t ready for marriage, and in September of 1999, they broke up.

Ten months later, Diane came home to a message a mutual friend left on her machine: “John is extremely ill in the emergency room. If you want to see him, you’d better get down here.” She raced to Sharp Grossmont Hospital.

John had been having symptoms of fatigue, swelling in his ankles, vomiting and difficulties with urination. A concerned friend took him to see a doctor. He was told his abdomen was a little distended, but otherwise everything seemed fine. A blood test was ordered and he went home.

The next morning the phone rang. The doctor told him he was in extreme renal failure and to get to the hospital as soon as possible. At the ER, he found out his creatinine level was off the charts, with a reading of 44.4—40 times the normal range. His nephrologist, Dr. George Fadda, told him he should have died.

“I’d never been sick before,” John says of the surreal experience. “I hadn’t seen a doctor since 1977. I was healthy. I didn’t drink, smoke or do drugs.”

The diagnosis was an enlarged prostate pinching off his urethra and causing a horrendous backup in his bladder. After 13 days in the hospital, he felt much better. But Fadda warned him his kidneys had been damaged beyond recovery and a transplant was in his future.

In September 2001, John fell ill again and learned he would have to go on dialysis. The need for a transplant had now become acute. At her insistence, Diane was tested for matching, but the doctors held out little hope. Often, even close family members do not match enough for transplants. The chance two unrelated people of different races would fit was astronomically small.

“It was miraculous,” Diane says. “The results came back and I was a match.”

Even so, the transplant team was skeptical. John was a foot taller than Diane and outweighed her by at least 100 pounds. It was impossible to suppose one of her kidneys could sustain him.

Diane persevered, insisting on an ultrasound. To Dr. Fadda’s amazement, her kidneys were extraordinarily large for a woman her size. “He said, ‘Well, I guess we’ll take the smaller one,’” Diane says with a chuckle.

On November 28, 2001, 30 years after Diane sat in the rain to watch him play football, John received a kidney from his longtime fan. The bond between the two was completed when they were finally married on August 16, 2003 at the New Life Orthodox Presbyterian Church in La Mesa with a reception at the University Club and a honeymoon in Hawaii. This year, as they have on every anniversary, they will return to the island paradise to celebrate their love and give thanks for this match truly made in heaven.

Diane and John started the John Brockington foundation to promote organ donor awareness. According to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, 96,000 Americans are on the national waiting list. Each day, 18 people die because a donor could not be found. For information on organ donation and registration, visit johnbrockingtonfoundation.org.

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