Olympic swimmers were strangers until a kidney donation made them family

PARIS — As the 2024 Summer Olympics approach and swimming takes center stage during the first week of the Games, there will be many stories written and told about the exploits of the extraordinary swimmers who have gathered to compete here. 

But before the current-day swimmers take the headlines, a story of two Olympic gold-medal-winning swimmers from the past is worth telling, two Americans from different eras who never knew each other until one decided to donate a kidney to the father of the other. 

Crissy Perham, competing as Crissy Ahmann-Leighton, won two gold medals and a silver at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics nearly three years before Missy Franklin was born. Franklin went on to become one of the superstars of U.S. swimming in the 21st century, winning four gold medals and a bronze at the 2012 London Games, then one more gold in 2016 in Rio. 

In January 2022, through friends on Facebook, Perham read a heart-breaking post from D.A. Franklin, Missy’s mother: “Our family is looking for a Hail Mary and need your help as we are in a race for time. My husband, Dick, is in End Stage Kidney Failure. He is on the Kidney Transplant list waiting for a cadaver kidney. The current wait is 4 years. 100,000 Americans are presently on the list. 17 die each day while waiting on the list. The other option to cadaver kidney is finding a living donor.” 

Said Perham, “I see this post and think, I’m so healthy, I’m not creeped out by surgery, I’m not going to have any more kids, I can do this. Lots of parts of my brain were like, check, check, check.”

She emailed D.A. Franklin to say she was interested in seeing if she might be a match, but decided to keep her conversation private and her identity anonymous as she went through the process over the next several months.

At the end of July, the match was confirmed, and Perham soon was revealing her name, and her Olympic resume, to the entire Franklin family.

Missy Franklin, known for being one of the kindest and most quotable swimmers of her generation, said she couldn’t believe a fellow Olympic swimmer was going to be her father’s donor. 

“I don’t think I talked for two minutes which for me is pretty much a lifetime,” Franklin said in a recent interview. “I did not know who Crissy was because she was a little bit before my time. She was anonymous at first. We just found out that my dad had a match. That in and of itself was a miracle. 

“Then we found out just before the surgery that it was Crissy and we learned who Crissy was and what her story was and there’s not really a way to put words to it. It truly is otherworldly that this happened, that she saw our story and she was willing to do this.”

Franklin, now 29, still marvels at the history she and Perham share through representing their country in their sport.

“It’s so much bigger than ourselves,” Franklin said. “When you meet another swimmer, another person that does what you do, you kind of automatically have this sense of respect and understanding. You know on a deeper level what it is they’ve been through and what they experienced. Knowing what Crissy accomplished, I couldn’t have been more excited and more at peace. She knows how to work hard, she’s going to recover like a champ, I couldn’t have imagined a better donor. I was like, ‘This kidney is going to be freaking awesome.’”

Turned out, it was. The transplant occurred August 24, 2022. Perham recovered quickly, as did Dick Franklin. 

Although she grew up in Colorado, Missy and her husband and young daughter were now living in Nashville. Soon D.A. and Dick were living in Nashville too. 

How far away? “Oh, 10 minutes,” Missy Franklin said. 

“Every day I wake up knowing that I am given the gift of more time with my dad, and my daughter is given the gift of more time with her grandfather and my mom is given more time with her husband,” Franklin said. “Throughout this whole process there is no greatest gift than that of time. And that’s what organ donation does. It gives people time. It gives people their lives back.”

Every few weeks, Franklin sends Perham texts with photos or videos of Dick playing with his granddaughter. “There is not a moment with my dad when I don’t think of Crissy, not only that he is here but also the quality of his life.”

Perham and her family have visited the Franklins once. It won’t be the last time, Missy Franklin said. “They’re family now. Any time they come to Nashville, it’s immediate, you’re staying with us, we’re planning dinner, the whole thing. They’re family and they always will be.”

Both Franklin and Perham have become very involved in promoting the cause of living organ donation, with Franklin’s current work focusing on the understanding and awareness of family history and inherited diseases. Perham even has had two friends become living kidney donors because of her experience. This is very serious business, most of the time.

“They say that when you take a donor’s kidney, they literally are taking cells from that person and putting them into the other person,” Perham said. “Dick jokes that he loves Mexican food way more now. He definitely got that from me, or at least from my kidney.”