Woman donates kidney to stranger she met at party

A mother-of-two gave her kidney to a stranger she met at a party after being touched by her plight. Mrs Buttigieg offered to donate her kidney just minutes after meeting Manoly Viravong, 45, who had been waiting for an organ for five years. Mrs Viravong's own brother had backed out of donating her a kidney yet Mrs Buttigieg did not have a second thought in going under the knife for someone she had just met. Mrs Buttigieg said: "I could tell she felt hopeless. Suddenly I just blurted out would you like one of mine?"

"The strange thing is, I meant it. It was like fate. I knew from that moment this is what I had to do." She said she never had second thoughts and the pair now feel like sisters. Mrs Buttigieg, who underwent the operation on her wedding anniversary, said: "My husband Mario and I were at a party and we sort of knew Manoly to say hello to, but that was all. I knew she had been ill but had no idea what exactly was wrong.



"Then during the course of the evening she told me how she had been waiting for a kidney and was on the transplant waiting list." She was very upset and began telling me how her brother had come over from Laos, in south east Asia, to give her his kidney but had backed out at the last minute and gone home. Mrs Buttigieg had to undergo a series of tests, but when she found out she could be a living donor for Mrs Viravong she was thrilled. She said: "When the results came back and said I was a match I knew even more it was the right thing to do.

"I'm a Christian and I knew God was telling me to do this- and I also knew I'd be all right. I didn't have a second thought once." The procedure, performed at the Royal London Hospital in July, was a success. Mrs Buttigieg spent several weeks recovering at home after the operation and was back at work in the schoolroom at Basildon Hospital by September. She now feels "as fit as a fiddle." "My life hasn't changed for the worse in anyway, but Manoly's has changed for the better."