Jack Petersen’s parents faced an unimaginable choice when he was born with kidney failure. Doctors gave him less than a 5% chance of survival.

“They told us he wasn’t going to make it and that we needed to decide if we wanted to keep him on life support,” says Vanessa Petersen, Jack’s mother.

But Jack defied the odds. After a NICU stay, he started dialysis at 8 months old. For the next year, he endured 10-hour dialysis sessions and threw up multiple times daily.

Pediatric nephrologist Veronica Taylor, MD, told Jack’s family his only chance for long-term survival was a kidney transplant. Multiple people volunteered to be tested as potential donors, as living donation is possible even for those who don’t know the patient. Jack’s father, Dan Petersen, turned out to be a near-perfect match.

“I would have only been a better match if I were his twin,” Dan says. “It couldn’t have worked out any better.”

In 2024, transplant surgeon Arika Hoffman, MD, performed Dan’s surgery and Jack’s transplant on the same day. The transformation was immediate. Jack stopped vomiting and began thriving.

“It was surreal to know that my little one-and-a-half-year-old had his dad’s kidney, and it was the start of a new life for him,” Vanessa says.

Now, almost two years after surgery, Jack is flourishing. He attends preschool, wrestles with his older brother and has become an older brother himself.

“His life is great now,” Vanessa says. “There’s nothing I would change about our experience.”

Nebraska Medicine operates the state’s only pediatric kidney transplant program, serving families across the region. Its multidisciplinary team cares for recipients and donors, supporting them throughout the transplant process.