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Detroit Police homicide investigator getting back to work after organ transplant

Posted at 6:20 PM, Sep 13, 2021
and last updated 2021-09-13 18:20:23-04

DETROIT (WXYZ) — "I feel good," Detroit Police Detective Steve Ford told his colleagues Monday morning at headquarters where they welcomed him back one month after Ford received a kidney from his son, Austin Ford.

Action News talked to the father and son before they went to Michigan Medicine in Ann Arbor for surgery in August.

Det. Ford, who had been battling kidney disease for years, said he began to feel better soon after surgery.

Months before the surgery, Austin began doing his own research on becoming a living donor and undergoing testing to see if he could donate one of his kidneys to his dad.

Steve and his wife, Cynthia, had no idea what Austin was doing until he shared the news with them. He was a match.

It seemed remarkable because Steve and Austin are not genetically connected.

Steve married Cynthia 22 years ago when Austin was just six years old, and Steve raised him as if they shared the same DNA.

"It doesn't feel like I'm losing anything. It just feels like glory," Austin told 7 Action News last month. "Just to be in a position to give a gift, to be a solution, to be a difference-maker.. that's what he's always been to me."

Steve said Austin is doing great in his recovery and that he headed back to Chicago Monday.

Steve is anxious to get back into the full swing of work, and while his doctor released him to return, we're told he'll have to ease into his duties until the department gives him the all-clear.

Click on the video to watch the latest in Kimberly Craig's report.