The former child star lost his last kidney in 1985 while still starring on “Diff’rent Strokes.”
Coleman was diagnosed with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, a degenerative kidney disease which causes irreversible internal scarring.
Coleman’s body quickly took to the new kidney and he quickly recovered in kind.
Gary Coleman on ‘Diff’rent Strokes’.Herb Ball/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty
“Two weeks after he had his surgery he was standing on his head,” she recalls.
That was the kind of kid I was."
Peacock/Raw TV Ltd
It was the medication Coleman began after his transplant which stunted his growth.
Dion Mial in ‘Gary’.Peacock/Raw TV Ltd
Mial explains: “the immunosuppressant drugs brought about the fullness in his face.
The transplanted kidney was re-absorbed into Coleman’s body, leaving him without a single kidney.
How’s Gary doing?'”
Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges on ‘Diff’rent Strokes’.ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty
But she saw Coleman’s father Willie “huffin' and puffin'.
He said, ‘Who the hell do you think you are?
Why did you have them cancel the show?”
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Coleman’s costarTodd Bridgesalso remembers the senior Coleman’s lack of sympathy for his son.
You got people depending on you, you gotta do what you gotta do."
His health would abide until 2009, when he began to sufferseizures.
“He had a spirit about him,” Coleman’s mother remembers.
Garyis currently streaming on Peacock.
