Michael Cheeks spent 15 years on dialysis waiting for a kidney.  A gift from a stranger would change his life forever.

When Michael Cheeks graduated from high school in 1993, he had a bright future ahead of him.  He earned a scholarship to play football in North Carolina, but shortly after graduation, he was feeling tired and lethargic.  His mother Linda took him to the doctor where they learned he was on the brink of dying from kidney failure brought on by severely high blood pressure.  From that point forward, Michael’s life took a dramatic change.  He went from playing football to spending three days a week in four-hour kidney dialysis sessions and taking eight prescription medications to keep his body going.

Two weeks before Christmas, Cheeks, 33, got the call that would change his life – a perfectly matched kidney.

Zachary Sutton

Zachary Sutton, 28, donated a kidney to Cheeks, a man he had never met until the day prior to transplant.  Sutton is studying to become a physician’s assistant at the Medical University of South Carolina.  Sutton first learned about organ donation in grade school when a classmate’s little brother was hit by a car and the parents decided to donate their son’s organs to help others.  When Sutton got his dr iver’s license, he researched how many lives could be saved by organ d onation.  Later, he watched his grandmother suffer from kidney failure and dialysis.   It was then that Sutton realized he wanted to donate a kidney while he was young and healthy enough to help someone else.

He took his final exams and while most students were heading home for the holiday break, Sutton headed to the MUSC Transplant Center and into the OR to give his kidney to Cheeks. Sutton insists he’s just a “normal guy, not a saint.  His research assured him that a healthy person could live a long, healthy live with only one kidney.  “I knew I wanted to do this. To me, the risk is so small compared to the benefit.”

Cheeks was overwhelmed with Sutton’s generosity. “He gave me my life back without even knowing me and he was so down to earth about it.”

Sutton insists it’s just normal: “It doesn’t take an extraordinary person to do this,” he said. “I’m not a hero; I’m a normal guy.”

Dr. Prabhakar Baliga performed Cheek’s transplant after Dr. Kenneth Chavin removed Zachary’s kidney.  Both physicians said living donors provide the best-quality kidneys.

South Carolina has 750 people waiting for a kidney transplant. Living donors provide about half of transplanted kidneys except in the Southeast, where most transplant kidneys come from cadavers.

MUSC performed its first living donor kidney transplant in 1968. It’s been shown that people can live well with only one kidney.

While there have been S.C. kidney donors to family members and friends, Sutton was first in the state to sign up for the transplant list. Since then, several more individuals — “good Samaritan donors” — have agreed to donate to people they don’t know.

 Because so many kidneys are needed, South Carolinians have an incredible opportunity to save the lives of their friends and neighbors.  Living donors are even more desperately needed to save the lives of transplant patients awaiting kidneys, blood and marrow.  Visit Donate Life for more information and please consider being a living organ donor.

WCSC Live 5 News follows Zachary and Michael through the transplant.