Long Island restaurant patron turns kidney donor

Susanne Deegan was celebrating her husband’s 60th birthday dinner last July 8 with family and close friends, partaking of her favorite dish of stuffed artichokes, when she heard disheartening news.

David Geliashvili, 51, the manager of the Italian restaurant La Bussola in Glen Cove, who has known Deegan and her family for years, told the gathering he had polycystic kidney disease and needed a transplant.

Deegan, 55, recalled her immediate reaction. "He told us at the table ... he said, 'I'm sick and I need a kidney.' I said, 'I'll get tested.' "

Months later on her February birthday and after series of tests, Deegan was approved as a match. On March 10, she donated a kidney to Geliashvili.

The two reunited on Tuesday alongside their transplant team at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset.

"There are not enough words for me to thank Susanne. I call her my angel," Geliashvili said. "There are angels among us."

Geliashvili, of Locust Valley, told reporters he began feeling fatigued and had fluid in his lungs in fall 2024; he thought he might have the flu.

In December 2024, Geliashvili went to the emergency room, where doctors diagnosed him with polycystic kidney disease.

He immediately went on dialysis, receiving it every other day for 14 months. Shortly after, he was put on the waiting list to receive a kidney transplant.

Geliashvili, who emigrated from the former Soviet republic of Georgia in 1999, said his father and sister also had health problems that required dialysis.

Dialysis, a four-hour process where blood is drained from the arm and cleaned by a machine before it is returned to the body, often leaves patients feeling exhausted.

More than 700 people at Northwell are waiting for a kidney transplant; the national list has more than 80,000 people.

Living donor best

Surgeons Dr. Elliot Grodstein and Dr. Aaron Winnick said a transplant from a living donor was better than from a deceased person because the kidney begins to work almost immediately in the recipient.

In 2025, Northwell performed 215 kidney transplants, 58 involving live donors.

Deegan, who has lived in Sea Cliff for more than 20 years, said Geliashvili was always part of the community. Her family often celebrates their milestones at La Bussola, so Geliashvili has frequently been a part of it.

"A lot of people say, 'Well, how could you do that? What if your family needs it? How could you donate, you know, to someone that you don't really know?' " Deegan said. "I would say that every person is a stranger ... they have their own loved ones. They have their own family. And so you're not donating to a stranger. You're donating to somebody's mother or son or brother or wife or husband or grandmother."

Before learning about Geliashvili’s need for a transplant, Deegan said, she didn’t know much about living donation and was shocked to learn people wait six to seven years for a kidney.

After about four months of testing, Deegan and her husband FaceTimed Geliashvili to tell him she had been approved for the transplant.

"I kind of lost it," Geliashvili recalled. "How do you react on that? It's very hard to describe the feeling."

Since the surgery, Geliashvili told reporters that aside from visiting the hospital once post-surgery, recovery overall is going well.

Deegan has since gone back to work in strategic communications, she said, and returned to her normal exercise routine.

"We're always family now, connected for life," Deegan said. "It's the greatest gift."