Full of excitement, generosity and life, Lindsey Madore shook her mother awake nearly a year ago with the good news.
“Mommy, I’m compatible,” Blanca Madore recalled her daughter telling her. “I’m giving you my kidney.”
But the 17-year-old died Sunday before she could give her mother the gift.
“I can’t believe she’s gone. She was my everything,” Madore said Monday, choking back tears.
Lindsey Madore was with a friend in a hot tub at a suburban Boca Raton community around noon Sunday when she became unresponsive. Lindsey, diagnosed with epilepsy as a child, had a seizure, Blanca Madore was told by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
Lindsey Madore was taken to West Boca Medical Center where she later died.
Blanca Madore was diagnosed last year with kidney failure. Lindsey went to a doctor without permission to find out if she was able to donate her kidney.
She was a match.
"I never asked her. I never had to," Blanca told The Palm Beach Post. "She talked to the doctor because she was just a wonderful person."
The doctors told Lindsey she needed to eat healthier and, in time, could donate, Blanca said.
“I remember her promising me, telling me she would do anything just so she could give me her kidney,” Blanca said.
That generosity was common of Lindsey, family members say. The teen spent weekends doing beach cleanups with classmates at Olympic Heights High School or babysitting for members of her family’s church, Manantial De Vida on Boca Raton Boulevard.
“She was like a second mom to me. She cooked. She cleaned. She drove me to school, took me anywhere I needed to go,” 15-year-old Brittany Madore said of her sister. “We fought like sisters, but we were best friends.”
Lindsey, the eldest of three children, had hopes of becoming a nurse and studying at Florida State University, her family said. But, one month ago, Blanca got word that her condition was deteriorating.
“She came back from school one day and told me she wasn’t going away for college any more,” Blanca said.
The high school senior told her mother that she wanted instead to go to Florida Atlantic University and stay in Boca Raton. “Mom, how will you get better if I’m not here?” Blanca recalls her daughter saying.
“I can’t comprehend it,” Blanca said. “She was supposed to turn 18. She was supposed to graduate high school.”
Lindsey had never had a seizure while awake, only minor seizures while sleeping, Blanca said.
“I know my daughter wouldn’t fall asleep in a pool or hot tub,” she said. The sheriffs office is awaiting autopsy results to confirm the cause of death.
Grief counselors were at the school Monday.
“The kids are very distraught. The teachers are very distraught,” said Dave Clark, principal at Olympic Heights. “It’s just a horrible tragedy. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family.”
A GoFundMe account was set up Monday by Lindsey's church to raise money for funeral expenses. Within 24 hours, the account raised nearly $2,700.
The family plans to hold a memorial service, but Blanca, now on a transplant list for a new kidney, is finding it difficult to set a date.
“I just keep expecting any minute now to wake up from a bad dream,” she said.
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