‘It’s His Turn For Somebody To Help Him': 40-Year Wantagh FD, NYPD Vet Searches For Living Kidney Donor

WANTAGH, NY — Karen Gillen said Wednesday that her husband, John, was “like [her] right hand.”

Karen has been married to John for 44 years, first meeting when they were in high school — she at Massapequa, he at Seaford. They’ve raised two daughters together: Meagan, a fourth grade special education teacher in Little Neck, and Erin, an occupational health nurse in New Jersey. They’ve also become grandparents, with three granddaughters and a grandson.

Now, the couple is taking on a new challenge: Trying to find John a living, Type-O kidney donor.

John had a quadruple bypass last November, after which his kidneys looked to be on the mend until about April. By July, he was in for a kidney biopsy and getting onto the deceased donor list — a list the family says runs about 90,000 deep. The average lifespan of a kidney from a living donor, the family said, is longer than that of a kidney from a deceased donor.

According to a video posted on an instagram page Erin and Meagan created, titled “a hero needs a hero,” John’s kidneys are running at about 15 percent function right now. At 10 percent, doctors would put him on a dialysis machine.

Think you may be a match? Click here to register to donate a kidney through NYU-Langone Health.

According to Karen, the process of finding a donor hasn’t been an easy one.

“I’m turning my back to him. I can’t talk about it and look at him,” Karen said, fighting back tears, Wednesday. “It’s extremely difficult. We’ve been hit with a hardball. And he’s more worried about me than he is with himself. He'll be talking to somebody, playing it very lightly, and I'm sitting there like, ‘John!’ And he goes, ‘No, no, no. I don’t need people to be extra worried.’ And that's the way he is.”

From his wife’s and daughters’ perspective, that care for others extended to John’s career, as well. He joined the NYPD in 1982, serving across Queens and rising to the rank of sergeant before retiring as the commanding officer of the city’s 110th Precinct.

When he wasn’t on the clock with the police department, he was volunteering with the Wantagh Fire Department, where he has been a lieutenant, captain, assistant chief and chief of the department, finally spending a decade as the commissioner of the department.

“He loves mentoring the younger firefighters, building the foundation for a safe career,” Meagan said. “[Even at] 60 years old, he’s putting on his gear, going up to show them exactly what the experience is… A lot of these younger guys [in the fire department] are asking us, ‘What can we do?’ Because he has done so much, through the generations, that everybody just really wants to help him and give back.”

While people in the community may be lining up to help, John said help isn’t always the easiest thing for first responders to ask for.

“First responders, they don’t like to ask for help. They like to help, they don’t like to ask for help,” John said. “So, if somebody came forward with something like this, I couldn’t even put it into words. It’s very humbling.”

When asked how it feels living day-to-day with these kidney complications, John — in a manner that his family said is typical of him — mentioned the impact they have had on the time he spends with his family.

“The one thing that bothers me is [that] I’m tired. Playing with the grandkids, I have to sit down and rest after a while,” John told Patch.

All four of John’s grandchildren are athletes. The health issues in recent years, Meagan said, have limited his ability to travel to see them play. Even at home, activities like playing with Barbies on the floor with his nine-year-old granddaughter, or going in the pool, have become more difficult.

“We're kind of seeing it in all aspects of the kids’ lives, as well, which I know — for him — is probably the hardest thing,” Meagan said.

While his illness has taken some of his energy away from spending time with his grandkids, John has also been taken away from another group of people close to his heart: The fire department.

“It’s frustrating, because I sit at home and the radio goes off, and I can’t go to the firehouse,” John said. “For me, that's the frustrating part: That I really can't do anything right now. I'm hoping, once I get the transplant, I can go back to driving and participating more.”

Among the things he’s most eager to get back to at the firehouse, John said, is the mentorship. Wednesday, John said he saw teaching younger firefighters as a way to give back to a department where more senior members had taught him the ropes, once upon a time.

Among the firefighters he mentored was Meagan’s now-husband, Pete. Meagan said she met Pete when her dad was the chief of the department, going to events at the firehouse.

“I told Meagan, as she was growing up, I had one rule: No cops or firefighters,” John said. “So, she broke that rule.”

Erin, John said, had “sort of” broken that rule as well: her husband, Brian, is a U.S. Navy veteran.

“Both of my sons-in-law are just, I really couldn't ask for two better guys…I’m blessed,” John said.

Speaking with Patch Wednesday, Erin said the lifestyle of having first responders in the family is one she and her sister came by honestly. Her grandfather, Erin said, was an FDNY firefighter and a U.S. Navy veteran.

“It’s our whole life, first responders,” Erin said. “They say ‘you learn it,’ and we saw how much [John] worked, and Pete and Brian worked, but I think it's just what we were raised in. We saw my mother take over the house because [John] was making a call, or was stuck because he made an arrest, so we saw it. And it's just what we're used to, and what we learned.”

The hope, Erin said, is that a new kidney will allow John to be more active with not only his grandkids, but the fire department as well.

“It will give him renewed life, both personally and professionally,” Erin said. “He could go back and start training the younger kids [in the fire department] again, [who] will go out and help save a life. It’s such a compounding domino effect.”

Karen said Wednesday that the family has been “praying” to find a donor. When asked what finding one would mean to her, she summed it up in four words.

“You’re saving my husband,” Karen said. And I would not be able to thank them enough…it’s a tremendous thing.”

With that, Karen said, she turned back around to face her husband.

“When you’re together with somebody for that long, it’s like he’s my right hand,” Karen said. “We’ve been on the same road in the same direction all these years.”