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Single Mom With 2 Failing Kidneys Saved By Stranger

WINCHESTER (CBS) - A single mother with two failing kidneys was saved by the kindness of a complete stranger.

"I work as a web developer. She's a web designer," Kara Yimoyines said.

"She's from the Midwest. I'm from the Midwest," said Nicole Baltzer. "We both like sports."

This months-old friendship feels in so many ways meant to be. Once-strangers in the same town, now connected for life.

"I certainly never set out to be a living donor as part of my life plan," Nicole said.

Kara Yimoyines
Nicole Baltzer and Kara Yimoyines (WBZ-TV)

But that plan took a new direction, when Nicole read a Facebook post from a single mom with lupus growing sicker, waiting for a new kidney.

"I remember reading it and feeling so bad. This is so unfair," Nicole said. "That's when it really hit me. I can do something about this. Maybe I'm a match."

Kara Yimoyines
Nicole Baltzer and Kara Yimoyines (WBZ-TV)

After months of screening and just before Christmas, doctors used words like "perfect match." On a winter morning at Tufts, from one Winchester mother to another, the gift of a kidney and so much more.

"From not being able to play with my kids and being asleep most of the time. Not feeling good, to recovering who I was a few years ago," Kara said. "Giving me that time back with my children. Allowing me to be involved in their lives in a way I hadn't been."

Nicole's selfless sacrifice is now a priceless lesson for her own daughter.

"I think actions speak louder than words," Nicole said. "I feel it when I look at Kara. This has been a good thing for everybody."

Every 14 minutes someone is added to the transplant registry list and every day, 13 people die waiting for one. To learn more about the life saving gift of organ donation visit www.kidney.org.

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