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In 2006, Gottschalk was weak, started getting itchy sensations and couldn’t sleep at night. He has Alport’s disease, a genetic condition that caused his kidneys to fail. He started dialysis that year, but knew it wasn’t a permanent solution.

Moore, his friend since junior high, called him last year and said he wanted to be tested to see if he could donate a kidney.

“On Nov. 19, they said we have some good news and some bad news. You’re a match, but you’re pre-diabetic, so we can’t take you,” Moore recalled.

He decided being pre-diabetic was something he could change, and set out to lose weight so he could become a good donor candidate. He went on the low-carb Atkins diet, lost about 25 pounds, and when his weight loss slowed, began intense workouts, including bike rides.

He started recording videos and posting them to YouTube. They’re numerous, low-key and were just intended for Gottschalk, to keep his spirits up, but hospital officials say they also help to shed light on his organ donation process.

Dressed in activewear and running sneakers at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis the day before the transplant surgery, Moore was down to 200 pounds from 250, and said he conquered both the “turkey waddle under his neck” and his former “man boobs.”

“If you came to me on Nov. 19, and said, ‘Mike, you’ve got to stop eating chocolate or you’ll die,’ I’d have said, ‘Let’s order a chocolate cake and plan a funeral.’ I would not have lost this weight for myself.”

Full Article: Yahoo!

What a great story. All of us can only hope to have a great friend that would do such an act of kindness if our lives depended on it. Another story that proves humanity still isn’t all gone. It should be also noted that thousands of people are waiting for an organ transplant annually and many of them do not get it. If you have not already done so, you should agree to have your organs donate if something should happen to you.

DUBLIN (AFP) – An Irishman blinded by an explosion two years ago has had his sight restored after doctors inserted his son’s tooth in his eye, he said on Wednesday.

Bob McNichol, 57, from County Mayo in the west of the country, lost his sight in a freak accident when red-hot liquid aluminium exploded at a re-cycling business in November 2005.

“I thought that I was going to be blind for the rest of my life,” McNichol told RTE state radio.

After doctors in Ireland said there was nothing more they could do, McNichol heard about a miracle operation called Osteo-Odonto-Keratoprosthesis (OOKP) being performed by Dr Christopher Liu at the Sussex Eye Hospital in Brighton in England.

The technique, pioneered in Italy in the 1960s, involves creating a support for an artificial cornea from the patient’s own tooth and the surrounding bone.

The procedure used on McNichol involved his son Robert, 23, donating a tooth, its root and part of the jaw.

McNichol’s right eye socket was rebuilt, part of the tooth inserted and a lens inserted in a hole drilled in the tooth.

The first operation lasted ten hours and the second five hours.

“It is pretty heavy going,” McNichol said. “There was a 65 percent chance of me getting any sight.

“Now I have enough sight for me to get around and I can watch television. I have come out from complete darkness to be able to do simple things,” McNichol said.

Source: Yahoo! News

Quite an amazing story. The story doesn’t give many details, but it sounds like this man avoiding major injury to his optical nerve allowing for this reconstructive surgery. It’s hard to imagine what life would be like having lost your eyesight. I hope this man can retain his new found eye sight.