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The Greatest Gift

An incredible story of selfless friendship, started at SUNY Oneonta

By SUNY Oneonta

July 29^th, 2020

As best friends and roommates at SUNY Oneonta, Jen Pugliese and Colleen Rivers shared many things, from snacks to study tips to the remote control. Thirty years later, when Colleen needed a new kidney, Jen shared one of those, too.

Colleen and Jen’s friendship began in 1987 in Littell Hall. Jen was a freshman and Colleen had just transferred in as a junior, and they lived in the same hallway. The two young women clicked “from the second we met,” Colleen said, and decided to room together the next year.

“We spent so much time together,” Colleen recalled. “The things I remember most are random weekends when we would just jump in my car and grab Dairy Queen and drive around and talk. Or just being in our room together – we literally had one television channel, ABC – lying in bed on Sundays watching bass fishing and bowling because that’s all that was on!”

Colleen graduated in 1989 and, when she got married in 1990, Jen was a bridesmaid. Jen, who was majoring in communication, graduated a year later, in 1991.

Although Colleen lived in New Jersey and Jen lived on Long Island, the two kept in touch and remained close, talking “all the time” and getting together about five times a year. When Colleen’s father passed away from kidney disease in 2016, Jen was there and was “unbelievably supportive.”

Jen and Colleen on Colleen's wedding day.

Almost three decades after leaving Oneonta, Colleen was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease, an inherited disorder in which clusters of cysts develop in the kidneys and, many times, cause kidney failure by age 60. Colleen’s condition was progressing rapidly and, by August 2018, she needed a new kidney.

Colleen’s name was added to the national kidney transplant waitlist, and testing began to see if her husband, Timmy, would be a good match to donate a kidney to her. Jen insisted that she would be his backup.

“Col called me one day and was devastated, saying Timmy wasn’t a good match,” Jen recalled. “I hung up the phone, called the hospital, and told them to send me all the stuff I had to do and schedule me for all the exams. I wasn’t going to let my best friend go on dialysis or die.”

“Jen had two young kids, so I was like, ‘Oh my god, are you crazy?’” Colleen said. “But she never hesitated. Within two weeks of her testing being completed, we were in the hospital getting ready for the surgeries.”

The night before the operations, Oct. 28, 2019, Colleen and Jen shared a hotel room like the old days and wore matching pajamas.

Colleen and Jen pose together the night before the surgeries.

The next day in the hospital, Colleen continued to ask Jen if she was sure she wanted to go through with it all, and her answer was always, ‘Of course.’ But she wasn’t about to miss an opportunity to make Colleen laugh.

“They took Jen into surgery first and our families were surrounding us and, as they wheeled her away, she grabbed onto the wall and started yelling that she had changed her mind. … she’s hysterical – the funniest person I know.”

The surgeries were successful, and Colleen had narrowly escaped having to have dialysis. Although it was the first surgery Jen had ever had, she was never scared.

“I had no worries at all and never hesitated,” Jen said. “It was a tough recovery and I was in a lot of pain, but I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.”

After the transplant, Colleen gave Jen a kidney-shaped necklace.

“Her friendship means everything to me and she’s always been there for me," Jen said. "I really believe things happen in life for a reason and that we were meant to meet at Oneonta.”

In February, Jen and Colleen were able to meet up for the first time since the transplant, sharing a hotel room in NYC, going out for dinner and spending hours talking. October 2020 will mark one year since the operation.

Jen and Colleen are eagerly planning a trip to their old stomping grounds and say they will always be grateful they went to Oneonta and met one another.

“She’s amazing – she’s always been an amazing friend,” Colleen said. “I always call and text her and say ‘This thing (kidney) is incredible – you saved my life!’ And she just laughs and says ‘Stop thanking me already, it’s getting annoying!’”