Christine Boyd wants to meet all the people whose lives were helped by her son's donated organs after doctors declared him brain dead earlier this month.
She won't have to look too far for the man who received a kidney from her son, Cornelius Boyd. Wendell Horn and Cornelius Boyd lived in the same neighborhood all of their lives, were friends through school into adulthood, and both drove trucks for a living.
When Cornelius Boyd was declared brain dead Nov. 16 after being shot Nov. 5, doctors learned Cornelius Boyd and Horn had the same blood type that made a kidney transplant possible.
"I was just so excited and ecstatic about it," Cornelius Boyd's sister Nancy Scheel said. "That was the best news out of all this for my brother's death. It made everything not seem so pointless."
Horn, 48, had survived since 2001 on dialysis, a system of cleansing the blood, after cancer claimed one kidney and the other failed soon after. He had his blood cleaned as he slept three nights a week and was on a wait list for a kidney for two years.
Horn was shocked to learn Boyd was shot. When it was clear Boyd would not survive, Boyd's brother called Horn and told him the family was willing to give him a kidney.
"I was happy, but then I was sad too because of Corny," Horn said through tears in an interview in his hospital bed, a week after the transplant surgery. Mylar balloons saying "Get Well Soon" were still full, and the purple, yellow and red flowers his friends sent him were still fresh beside his bed.
Christine Boyd said she was happy to hear the transplant went well.
"I kind of believe if it helps someone else live, so be it," she said in her home with a photo of her son lying in front of her on a coffee table. "There shouldn't be any guilty feelings. I miss my son already ... but knowing, with him being killed so senselessly, someone else can live, why, I feel good about that."
His hospital stay has given Horn a chance to reminisce about Cornelius and all the time they spent playing together as children and going to Norte Vista High School.
"I sit up here at night and think about all the people Corny gave life to," Horn said.
Horn called Christine Boyd in the days after the surgery. "She told me, 'I lost a son and I gained a son,' " Horn said.
Horn said he wants to volunteer to help other dialysis patients, encourage his family to become organ donors when they die and live a healthy life.
"I'm going to take good care of this kidney, extra careful for Corny," Horn said.
Cornelius Boyd, 46, was in his car when someone approached and shot him, said Riverside police Sgt. Derwin Hudson. Hudson said he had no suspects in the shooting.
Reach Jessica Logan at jlogan(at)PE.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com
Must credit The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Calif.
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