Colleen Frazier, Delores's transplant coordinator in the UNC Comprehensive Transplant Center, remembers how difficult and relieved the moment was for Delores and her care team, including Robert Watson, M.D., assistant professor of surgery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, who performed the transplant.

"We were so happy for Delores that she got a transplant, but we were all very sadden that she lost her son," Colleen says. Of the more than 100,000 people in the United States on a transplant list (one is added every 11 minutes), 80 percent of them need a kidney. "Like so many people she waited a long time, and this was the right kidney to the right person."

"I believe there are certain obligations, certain standards that also go along with having this privilege (of receiving an organ transplant)," Delores says, "and I'm going to make sure that people know as a recipient what it means to have a second chance at life."

Source: UNC Hospitals