WASHINGTON (WUSA9) -- It's the season of giving and there's no better gift than the gift of life. A self-described “ordinary woman” made an extraordinary decision that saved the life of a total stranger.
Maurice Lucas had been waiting for this moment for almost a year. He finally got to meet and thank the stranger who gave him back the gift of life.
She's his new bestie Jane Bishop.
"All I wanted to do was just hold her, hug her and kiss her," Lucas said.
Bishop didn't not know the person who needed her kidney or anything about their health history.
"What I care about is that the kidney is working and it is, I understand," Bishop said.
And for that Maurice is grateful. The 65-year old retired Metro bus driver had been struggling for three-years with failing kidneys and was in very bad shape.
"My creatinine levels were 8.9. They said I don't know how you are alive," Lucas explained.
He was on dialysis for just a short while. Later he was evaluated and added to George Washington University's Kidney Transplant list. Within five months, while getting dialysis, he found out he was the recipient of a donor organ.
"To find out there was a lady that said this was the season to donate a kidney and her and I was a match was unbelievable," Lucas stated.
Bishop understands better than most how precious life is. She's an 11-year breast cancer survivor. Because of what she'd been through, choosing to be a living donor was easy.
"I am so grateful to be this healthy. It is completely out of a sense of gratitude and being blessed," Bishop said.
And Lucas believes his kidney transplant match was a blessing because he and Jane are from different ethnic groups.
"You don't need a perfect match, you really just need a donor,” Lucas believes.
"Washington DC area has the worst problem in the country. We don't have enough people that donate. The great thing is we have these altruistic people, these non-directed donors that want to save strangers lives. Without them more people would die," Dr. Keith Melancon is Chief of Transplant Surgery at GW's Kidney Transplant Institute explained.
"Jane's kidney must be like a 30-year old's or something. I feel so spry and everything now," Lucas said.
As of now, more than 1,000 people are awaiting a kidney transplant.
Here’s how you can help: http://www.kidneyregistry.org/
