Couple to celebrate Christmas miracle at Mayo Clinic

(FOX 9) - For Todd and Sarah McCutcheon, it seemed all too fitting to be at Mayo Clinic for Christmas. They did it before and consider it a miracle.

"We had a good outcome the first Christmas. I survived stage 4 pancreatic cancer, so it’s like having another miracle - a kidney, which I need," Todd said.

In the summer of 2016, issues with Todd’s kidneys led to finding a baseball-sized tumor in his pancreas that had spread to his liver. He was given an eight percent survival rate and a choice of dates for surgery.

"I had two days to choose from and I chose Christmas."

Todd spent Christmas at Mayo six years ago and beat the odds. Now in need of a kidney transplant and given a Christmas option, it felt like divine intervention.

"When we heard December 23rd, we went, ‘It sort of worked for us last time, we’re going to do this again,’" Sarah said.

There are currently 91,000 people waiting for a kidney transplant in the U.S. The best outcomes are from living donors if you can find a match.

"The waiting time for a kidney, depending on where you are in the country…they’re very long," said Dr. Taner, Todd's doctor.

But, a miracle came along in the form of Sarah.

"It was just a miracle that my wife was a match, which is like one out of 10,000," Todd said. "So we were meant to be."

With transplant surgery set for Wednesday morning, they’ll now both spend Christmas as patients at Mayo.

"We’re just grateful they’re here and come spend the holidays with us in Rochester," Dr. Taner said.

"We’re going to go for the Christmas miracle and we get to be together. We may be away from our family, but we’ll be Zooming with them and spending at least Christmas Eve and Christmas Day together."