For two teachers, a friendship that feels like family

The large swinging doors had just closed behind her hospital gurney when Phyllis saw Chris’ palm pressed against the window.

It was the 2011 day of her kidney transplant surgery. Chris’ message was as clear to Phyllis as it had been all the times he drove her from George Washington High School, where they both taught, to dialysis at Eighth and Walnut Streets. He would stay nearby for the five hours it took the machines to clean the toxins from her blood and periodically, his hand would appear in the sidelight of the door between waiting room and treatment room. “Chris was letting me know that I wasn’t alone, that he was there,” Phyllis said.

Chris, now 47 and living in Huntingdon Valley, teaches science and is the technology coordinator at Washington, his alma mater. While a student, he volunteered to help the football program and PE department with technology, assisted in PE classes, and created playbills and brochures for school activities. After graduating, Chris earned an ocean studies degree from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., but returned to volunteer at Washington every spring. Chris was planning to join the Navy after his 1997 college graduation. In the meantime, he returned to Philadelphia and his volunteer work at Washington, and one day, the administration offered him a grant-funded job supporting the computer labs.

“It made sense,” Chris said. “I could stay local and help care for my parents.”

Chris was happy to help anyone with his tech know-how, and that included English teacher Phyllis, who is now 75. “Hey, I know you,” he told her the first time he went to her classroom. Phyllis couldn’t place him until he brought his yearbook from Rush Middle School – where she had taught early in her career and where his mother, Dolly Wiley, was Home and School Association president.

Twenty years after his mother had helped Phyllis buy cameras for her yearbook students, Chris taught Ms. Procopio to use video editing equipment and other specialized equipment Phyllis had purchased for her film students. Chris and Phyllis attended training at Bowling Green University together and Chris helped Phyllis write the film class curriculum.

“She was well ahead of her time,” said Chris. “Her passion for the subject and the materials was undeniable. She just didn’t quite have the technical ability.”

When Chris earned his master’s degree in computer information systems from the University of Phoenix, Phyllis joined his mother, father John, and his Uncle Buddy in Arizona to see him walk the stage. Afterward, they all hit Las Vegas and saw the Hoover Dam.

“She’s like my best friend,” Chris said of Phyllis. “She’s someone I can depend on. She’s compassionate. She’s honest. She’s kind. It’s very hard to find people who wear their hearts on their sleeves and are very true to themselves, but that’s Phyllis. Everybody should have someone like her in their life.”

In 2000, Chris was in a motorcycle accident that landed him in the hospital for two weeks and in rehab after. “I went to see him at the rehab center, and there he was showing the other patients how they could write in their own dinner choices that were not on the menu,” said Phyllis. “Another time, he was making cookies for the whole floor.”

Chris’ grant didn’t include health insurance, and he needed something more permanent. He loved working with students and “with my science degree, I could get an emergency certification and start teaching right away,” he said.

When he earned a second master’s degree in education from Holy Family, Phyllis became his collaborating teacher and mentor. “He has a fantastic rapport with kids. They can see that he’s real, that he knows his subject, and that he cares about them,” she said. “I was amazed at how well he could teach even back then without many years of experience.”

In 2006, Phyllis got pneumonia. Her lungs cleared, but she did not feel well. She had had strep throat as a child and her doctors discovered that the virus, lying dormant in her body, had severely damaged her kidneys. Phyllis was diagnosed with end stage renal failure. Shortly after, she was placed on the transplant list. Chris was tested but was not a match.

Phyllis first tried a type of in-home dialysis. Chris went with her to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and learned how to use the machine so he could assist her. When that no longer sufficed, Phyllis began getting treatments at a dialysis center. Chris took her, waited, and drove her home.

Eventually, she qualified for transportation for her treatments. “One time, my blood pressure dropped so low they had to send me to the hospital. They called Chris,” said Phyllis, who had passed out and woken up in the ambulance. Chris was with her. “Am I going to die?” she asked him. “Not on my watch,” he said.

In 2009, Chris met Christine, an Army vet who then taught Spanish and now teaches ESOL courses at Washington. They began dating and fell in love. “Phyllis became Chrissy’s friend, too,” he said.

Chris and Christine spend their summers traveling, and when she can, Phyllis, who retired in 2010, joins them. In summer 2011, the couple found a special vacation cruise with on-board dialysis so Phyllis could travel without worry.

Later that year, she got the call that a kidney had been found.

“I called Chris, and by the time I got to the hospital, he was already there,” she said. “He walked alongside the gurney down to the double doors. I thanked him for being there for me, I wanted him to know how much that meant,” she said. A moment later, she saw his hand in the window.

“I knew it would make her feel comforted, and that’s why I did it – to keep her spirits up,” Chris said.

“Ever since then, he and his family have been [part of] my family,” said Phyllis.

Chris and Christine married in 2012 and Phyllis was a groomswoman. The couple’s son, Hunter, 7, calls Phyllis his Filly. She takes Hunter to swimming lessons, and he regularly stays at her condo in Northeast Philadelphia.

This past summer, Phyllis, Chris, Christine, and Hunter, along with Chris’ mother, sister, and niece, went to Disney World. “He designed this big umbrella-like top for my scooter,” Phyllis said. Chris clarified that he retrofitted a pop-up chair canopy for the scooter, but this doesn’t dampen Phyllis’ enthusiasm. “It was the talk of the park!”

Most of the time Phyllis spends with Chris and his family is more low-key. They take Hunter to the trampoline park or the playground or exploring in the backyard. They have dinner together – Chris makes excellent ribs, and Phyllis taught him to make sausage and peppers. Whenever something breaks at Phyllis’ condo, Chris fixes it.

Phyllis’ kidney has lasted 11 years – much longer than she expected. While it is functioning, Phyllis has been in stage 4 kidney failure since having the norovirus in 2017.

Every four months, she has a kidney checkup, and it always makes her anxious. Chris busts through that with teacher humor: “Did you study for it?” he always asks.

As of her late-December appointment, Phyllis’ kidney function is at 17%, a slight decrease. If it declines to 13%, she will need dialysis again.

“My doctors assume that at some point in the future, I will need another transplant,” Phyllis said.

“I try to keep focused on the positive – the good life I have and the good friends I have is what keeps me going,” Phyllis said. “I know that whatever news I get, I will always be able to handle it, thanks to Chris and his family.”

“We will take it as it comes, and appreciate every day we get,” said Chris.

To learn about organ donation, visit organdonor.gov or the National Kidney Registry, which facilitates living kidney donor transplants.