Neighbor Spotlight: Lifelong fraternity brothers grow closer through kidney donation
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Just about 50 years ago, a friendship between Ron Frew and Bob Bullano began at Penn State University.
The two teens became roommates at a fraternity house in the early 1970s and they remain friends today — but Bullano, a fourth-generation Italian-American, might argue they’re family.
In October 2020, Frew donated one of his kidneys to Bullano. The two friends were recognized at a Rose Ceremony at Allegheny General Hospital on April 23.
Bullano, 67, of New Castle is jocular. Behind the jokes is a palpable sincerity for the selfless gesture of a friend-turned-brother.
“La famiglia è tutto,” he said, addressing a small crowd on a sunny morning at the North Side hospital’s courtyard. The Italian phrase translates to “the family is everything.”
The decision to give his buddy one of his organs came instinctively. He knew it was possible, he said.
Frew, also 67, of Monroeville was on the phone bantering with his fraternity brother, Bullano, one day early last year. They were catching up, talking about their health — pre-pandemic. Bullano had been diagnosed with chronic kidney disease years prior but it had been worsening over the previous few months to the point of reaching end-stage renal disease. Pretty soon, his kidney would fail, meaning death or dialysis. He told Frew he’d been placed on a transplant list and began talking about the process.
During the conversation, Bullano mentioned his blood type, O-positive. That’s when Frew interjected.
“Very nonchalantly on the phone, he says, ‘Hey, Bob, I have O-positive, you can have my kidney anytime,’ ” Bullano said.
Frew said he knew it could be done.
“I had seen stories on TV that said it’s very possible that you could help somebody out,” he said. After the phone call, he spoke to his wife, Andrea, who told him it’s his body and his decision.
“And if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be,” Frew said.
After several tests, doctors found the friends to be a match, he said. Months later, abdominal transplant surgeon Lorenzo Machado performed the surgery.
“Transplantation is a marvel of modern medicine,” Machado said during the ceremony. He called those who donate their organs for the marvel to exist “true heroes of humanity.”
Frew doesn’t feel like a hero.
“It was just, ‘Here’s just another way you can help out another human being.’ If you can do something to help, I don’t see why you shouldn’t. It’s pretty straightforward,” he said, equating the simplicity of the decision to helping someone on the side of the road change a flat tire.
“I wish I could say something more profound to inspire others to do it,” he said. “But I just did something to help a friend. It just so happened to be that I had surgery to do it.”
It was Frew’s first-ever surgery — a fact that is not lost on his friend.
“He’s more than a brother to me now. I mean, he’s part of my biology now. He gave me life — a new chance to live,” Bullano said of Frew.
Bullano has two grown children of his own and five grandchildren. He said he looks forward to spending time with them and seeing them grow up. He also looks forward to connecting with Frew on the golf course.
“We keep joking about how many strokes he’ll give me now that I weigh a pound and a half more than he does,” he said, laughing.
Frew said a kidney is all his friend gets.
“I’m not giving him any strokes,” he said.
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