'You will always have a part of her in you': Florida teen saves dad's life with kidney
Shawn Glenn had many loved ones offer to help when he was diagnosed with kidney failure, but he always turned them down.
“I wanted everybody around me … to be healthy just in case something happened to me,” the West Palm Beach, Florida father of five told USA TODAY this week. “I wanted to wait for a non-living donor.”
He never imagined that his donor would be his own teenage daughter, Symaria Glenn. The 13-year-old suffered a brain bleed at the end of January and lost her battle with the illness on Feb. 3.
When doctors asked their family about donating her organs, her mother, Dhima Martin, thought allowing Symaria to do one last good deed would be fitting for the middle-schooler, who was always looking out for others during her life.
Just before the surgery to remove her organs at Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital in Hollywood, Symaria was taken on an honor walk, in which all available hospital staff line the hallway between a donor's room and the operating room and observe the incredible gift they are giving.
Although doctors told her that her daughter could not be saved, Dhima Martin said she still held out hope that her daughter would pull through until the last minute, even during the honor walk.
“I said even as she was going for the surgery that if she wakes up on that table … stop, save my baby,” her mother said. “I felt she was already in heaven. I felt like she wasn't there so she gets to continue on and save lives.”
Altogether, Symaria donated six organs, saving five lives, including her dad's.
Teenager complained of headache before being found unconscious
On Jan. 30, Symaria went to school and had a routine day. That evening, the 7th-grader had her first volleyball game of the season, her mother said.
“I said something about being proud of her and she was like ‘Who, me?’” Dhima Martin recalled. “She was very humble. I said that to her in the car and she received it.”
The next day, she went to school and when her mom came home with cheesecake in tow, she was pretty excited. She ate some, did some of her homework and then told her mother her head was hurting. Her mom told her to lie down.
“Somewhere in between, I realized how serious it was,” her mother said, adding that she couldn’t wake her up.
Symaria Glenn's family gets devastating news
Symaria was rushed to one hospital in the Palm Beach area and was then airlifted to Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital in Hollywood, where they had a pediatric brain surgeon who could see her.
Her brain was bleeding and doctors weren’t able to stop it, nor were they able to perform tests because her brain continued to swell, her father said.
According to NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, a brain bleed refers to bleeding between the brain tissue and the skull, or inside the brain tissue. Brain bleeds can limit oxygen supplied to the brain and cause headaches, nausea, vomiting, tingling in the extremities or facial paralysis.
When Symaria suffered a brain bleed and her father got the call that she wasn't responsive, he couldn’t understand how something like this could happen.
“I was asking why and how,” he recalled. “We were just at a volleyball game yesterday.”
Her mother added that she was perfectly healthy and had no preexisting conditions. Her family still doesn’t know what caused the issue.
Symaria ‘was the one that strived to be perfect’
Symaria is the second oldest child on her father’s side and the oldest on her mother’s side. She often acted like a mother to her siblings, her parents said, with her dad adding that she "was the one that strived to be perfect.”
“She was my goody two shoes,” he said, smiling. “She was my most selective one. She was the pickiest one.”
She wanted to do well in anything she tried, be it school, volleyball, acting or dancing.
Dhima Martin said her daughter always made people feel loved and seen. She loved Taylor Swift and loved to perform, and could often be seen dancing and singing around the house.
'You will always have a part of her in you'
Symaria’s father tried his best to shield his kids from his health struggles, which began in 2019. It started with pneumonia and multiple hospital visits. During one visit, a doctor told him his kidneys were failing.
He joined the national waitlist for organ donation in 2020, which included more than 90,000 other people in need.
He was forced to stop working in this trucking industry due to appointments and dialysis. He underwent dialysis for years before his daughter fell ill.
He didn’t tell Symaria and her siblings too much about his health and turned down many loved ones who offered to see if they were a match for him. When Symaria got sick, her mother’s words were enough to convince him to accept the donation.
“You will always have a part of her in you,” he recalled her saying, and that’s all he has thought about ever since.
Her mother said she knows her daughter’s heart and wanted to honor that by having her donate a kidney to her father.
“If Symaria could choose to save your life, she would,” she recalled saying. “That’s her dad, and without him, she wouldn’t be here in the first place. We would’ve never gotten to live with her, experience her, be loved by her."
Remembering Symaria and her sacrifice
Symaria’s father said it was bittersweet, receiving his daughter’s kidney. People often tell him congratulations on receiving a kidney.
"They don’t understand the cost,” he said. “She’s my hero. I have a part of her in me and I’m happy for that.”
Even now, she finds ways to make her mother smile. Her mother has found notes around the house that she wrote to her. She also has a jar with notes Symaria gave her as part of a birthday gift.
“It’s a little jar she made and it says, 'Take one every birthday,’” she said, adding that inside are handwritten notes from her daughter telling her she’s the best mom and that she loves her.
And her big heart wasn’t just reserved for family. The day before she got sick, she had emailed her school’s assistant principal because someone was being bullied.
“To go back and see this email that she wrote the day before not knowing that the next day, her life was changing forever … that’s Symaria,” her mother said.
Her mother also said she came to a realization as she prayed for her daughter to pull through.
“When she was at the hospital, I was praying for a miracle and then realized that her existence, her life in itself, was a miracle,” she said.
Watch the full story and hear more from Symaria Glenn's family below.
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Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY's NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757. Follow her on Twitter at @SaleenMartin or email her at sdmartin@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Florida teen with fatal brain bleed saves dad's life with kidney
