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LEESBURG, GA. --
After receiving devastating news about her health in early 2011, one woman is thankful that her sister is giving a donation that will save her life.

Mildred Sherman and Sharon Adams spent the day in church Sunday to begin a week that's set to change the rest of their life.

Sherman had been diagnosed with kidney failure a year ago. When she found out that she would need a donor, she turned to family.

“Two weeks later my dad went and go get tested to give me a kidney and found that he had cancer,” says Mildred Sherman, a kidney recipient.

Doctors had found cancer in her father’s kidney.

“He found out that I had cancer in my left kidney. April of last year, we took my kidney out. So that killed my chances of giving her a kidney,” says Rufus Sherman, the father of Mildred Sherman.

He says realizing his own sickness was upsetting but, as a parent, not being able to help his child was heartbreaking. This is when Mildred’s sister stepped in, with a slight hesitation.

“We went through this back in 1999. My daughter had to have a heart transplant and it was just like we were going through this all over again,” says Sharon Adams, the sister of Mildred Sherman.

But this time the odds were in their favor because Sharon was a match.

“I called her on the phone.  I tried to tell her but I started to cry. We were on our way back to Atlanta, so we both were on the phone crying,” says Sharon Adams.

The family was overjoyed with the good news.

“I’m very grateful that god has blessed me with a sister that loves me enough to give me her kidney,” says Mildred Sherman.

The two sisters will travel to Atlanta on Friday for surgery.