A man installed a billboard in Times Square in search of a kidney: he managed to save several lives at once

Reporter Mark Weiner, 56, learned he had bladder cancer in July 2015. The following year, his prostate, bladder and both kidneys were removed. After another tumor was later removed from his stomach, Weiner was optimistic: all he needed was to find a kidney donor. But, as it turned out, it was not at all easy. The publication told about his unusual story. The Guardian.

But when he learned that family and friends couldn't donate, he looked at the numbers: more than 90 Americans need kidney transplants, and 000 people die every day while waiting. In New York State, the average waiting time for a kidney from a deceased donor is seven to 13 years.

Weiner didn't like these numbers. He thought of his daughter Lily, who was nine years old when he was diagnosed. He thought about the days he spent waking up at dawn to connect to a machine that for several hours pulled his blood, filtered it, and pumped it back into his body. Dialysis helped Weiner survive, but it was exhausting and not a cure.

But he was determined.

“Am I going to wait five, seven, ten years? Weiner asked himself. - Of course not".

Then one day there was a glimmer of hope. Weiner's wife, Lisa, heard of a man named Robert Leibovitz from New Jersey. On a family trip to Disneyworld, Leibovitz wore a shirt that read In Need of Kidney and his phone number. So he found a donor.

A plan was born in Lisa's head.

She has been in advertising for many years. One day Lisa was driving from Hershey Park when she received a call and confirmed the good news. She immediately went to her husband.

On a sunny day in late August 2018, Weiner stood at the corner of Broadway and 47th Street in Times Square, where a billboard showed his smiling face and a link to his new website. “My name is Mark,” read the billboard. - I need a kidney. You can help!"

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Weiner took a picture with his wife in front of a billboard, posted it on social networks, and with hope in his heart was waiting for one kind stranger.

More than 1800 people responded to Weiner's call for a kidney, and the potential donor portal Weill Cornell Medicine had created for him collapsed. However, he could not find a donor that would suit him.

But among those who responded was a man who changed Weiner's life - though not in the way he expected.

It was around 03:00 AM on an August 2018 morning when Mike Lollo, a slender man with cropped gray hair and a warm smile, read about Weiner's billboard in the New York Post. The humanity of Weiner's story appealed to Lollo, a retired New York City cop. So, over the course of several days, he underwent a blood test and 24-hour urine collection, preparing to donate his kidney to a person he had never met.

Lollo did not fit as a donor for Weiner. But that day something changed in his mind. He thought that if he was ready for surgery to change one stranger's life, why not do it for someone else?

In December of that year, Lollo underwent a two-hour operation while taking six weeks off. People usually do not donate their kidney to a stranger, they are most worried about the operation - the scar, the expense, thoughts about how life can change without one of the organs. However, Lollo joined a small but growing number of people in the United States to do so.

Therefore, when Weiner found out about Lollo's gesture, a reporter from the New York Post called him and asked for comment - he came to Lollo's room, with treats and a wide smile on his face.

Weiner entered the room, looked at Lollo and introduced himself.

“I know who you are,” Lollo said before he could finish.

“This guy,” Weiner said. "He was worried about me."

Mike Lollo was so moved to meet Weiner and donate his own kidney that he decided to volunteer for the National Kidney Donor Organization. He was later appointed its president.

In the meantime, Weiner began to realize the power of the human connection.

So, at the end of 2020, he came up with another plan: launched a second billboard in Times Square, this time on Seventh Avenue and West 43rd Street. Weiner knew he might still not find the kidney, but he wondered if there was still a Mike Lollo like that.

On December 31, CBS News, Weiner's employer, published an article that told his story.

“If you're ready to donate, consider donating a kidney,” Weiner said.

Four years after he launched his first billboard, Weiner has learned some lessons. He knew that people might see a billboard, want to donate, but eventually lose their resolve. So he and Lollo came up with a new system that brings people together who signed up for donations with "mentors." Now, if a potential donor is “frozen”, if he wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and asks the question “why am I giving my kidney to someone I don’t know”, the mentor will be in touch to remind them that the process is safe, because they've been through it already. Humans only need one functioning kidney to lead an active and healthy life, even though they were born with two.

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For Hillary Baud, the thought of Weiner's daughter pushed her into action. She watched This Morning live on TV and then watched it over and over again on her iPad for the rest of the day, researching kidney donation. She knew all too well the pain that comes when you cannot give your loved one the help they need.

Bud and her husband Jim had their first child in 2013, although there could have been two. Ellie, who was born prematurely at 33 weeks, had an identical twin who died during pregnancy. Ellie's first moments in the world were marked by pain. She stopped growing around the time of her twin's death, was 13 inches (33 cm) long and weighed approximately 1 kg. There were two holes in her heart.

Ellie underwent heart surgery five months after her birth. The operation stabilized her, but health concerns persisted. The doctors said she probably had brain damage. And on her body there is a reminder of a brother or sister that the world will never meet: she was diagnosed with type V cutis aplasia, a rare skin defect that occurs in surviving twins. Ellie was born without hip to knee skin, symmetrical in length on both legs.

Baud managed to undergo Ellie's laser treatment, which allowed her skin to expand into exposed areas, but that was not the end of the struggle. About a year after Ellie was born, Jim was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

It was then that Baud ran the marathon for the first time. She fled from grief and simply because she could.

Jim fully recovered from prostate cancer, and Ellie defied the doctors' predictions and is now the happy older sister of two-year-old Josie. But Baud continues to run marathons.

Shortly after she watched the CBS segment about Weiner, Baud made a decision.

“His family deserves the same relief that my family has,” she thought then. "And I have an extra kidney."

Baud turned out to be a normal donor for Weiner, but since it was not the strongest match (certain kidneys in some recipients will last longer than others), she did not give him her kidney.

Instead, she decided to initiate a "kidney chain": her organ went to someone else in need of that organ, who had another willing recipient that didn't fit. This man's kidney, like Baud's kidney, went to another stranger, and Weiner, thanks to Baud's donation, received a “voucher” for the kidney, which he can cash out when health conditions permit, having received a kidney from an optimally matched donor.

Four more people who wanted to donate to Weiner have completed testing, Lollo said, and are planning to donate their kidneys to strangers. While Weiner waits for his organ, he takes comfort in the fact that his efforts have helped save the lives of at least six people. Lollo attributes this effort to a mentoring program that he believes could help significantly shorten the kidney waiting list if there was more awareness of donation. According to the 2020 US Census, there are over 253,8 million adults in the country, most of whom are believed to have an extra kidney.

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Two weeks after the donation, Bud started running again - preparing for the New York Marathon. When she ran the largest marathon in the United States on November 7, 2021, she wanted to show people that kidney donors can still be athletes.

But finishing the race in less than four hours wasn't her only surprise that day. While Baud ran through the streets of New York, and her light tail fluttered down her back, her husband secretly met with Lollo and for the first time with the Weiner family. They were in the crowd on a crowded city street, an impromptu family among a sea of ​​strangers, and cheered her success.

At 13:50 pm, when Boud came into view, everyone was shouting her name: "Hillary!" She met eyes first with Jim, and then with Lollo, who pointed to the other man.

"Oh!" She screamed, noticing the face of the man she knew from the billboard. She hugged Weiner.

They spent that evening together, talking, laughing and looking to the future with hope.