Selena Gomez has opened up about her kidney transplant in an emotional interview on the Today show, which aired yesterday. The 25-year-old pop star recently revealed she secretly underwent the operation over the summer and that her good friend, actress Francia Raisa, donated her organ. She said, “My kidneys were shutting down. My mentality was to keep going.”
Selena said that Francia Gomez “lived with me during this interesting time where my kidneys were just done. That was it, and I didn’t want to ask a single person in my life.The thought of asking someone to do that was really difficult for me. She volunteered and did it. And let alone someone wanting to volunteer, it is incredibly difficult to find a match. The fact that she was a match, I mean that’s unbelievable. That’s not real.”
Selena said the experience was “really kind of life or death.” She said, “I started to attempt to fall asleep. And in the middle of that process, I started hyperventilating and felt so much pain. My teeth — I was grinding — I was freaking out. It was a six-hour surgery that they had to do on me and the normal kidney process is two hours. Apparently one of the arteries had flipped...”
The longtime friends were on bed rest and couldn’t dress themselves or take a shower. Now, Selena says her health has improved tremendously. Her arthritis went away right after the surgery, and now there is only “about a 3-5 percent chance” that her Lupus will “ever come back.”
Francia says she didn't know if she'd survive donating the kidney and says the risk really hit home when she had to write a will. The friends said that the donation process had to be sped up because Selena was in such bad shape that she couldn't even open a water bottle. A process that would normally take months was done in days.