A retired Montgomery County police officer says he feeling the best he's felt in years after receiving a living donor kidney transplant from a former colleague.
Mom-of-two Megan Ambrose surprised her former colleague Stanley Barsch with some stunning news on Valentine's Day: The two were a perfect match for a kidney donation.
The procedure took place on Tuesday at Medstar Georgetown University Hospital.
Barsch is still recovering but tells News4 partner WTOP that his new kidney is working great and that he’s feeling the best he has in years.
The father-of-three suffered from polycystic kidney disease, or PKD, a hereditary condition that had left his kidney's functioning at 13 percent capacity when he spoke to News4 in February.
He retired in 2016 because of PKD, and then faced with a tough choice: Find a donor soon, or eventually go on dialysis and further damage his kidneys.
Barsch eventually posted on Facebook. More than 30 people stepped up to fill out paperwork to see if they were a match.
Officer Ambrose was one of those people. The two met in 2007 at the Montgomery County Police Academy. They graduated and became not just colleagues, shift mates and beat partners, but friends.
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The card read, "So I heard urine need of a kidney..."
Scrawled at the top was a question: "Want mine?"
"Turns out we are a perfect match... Not only on the job but in blood & organs too," the card read. "You always had my back on the road and off, now you can have my kidney. I am honored to be able to give you the gift of life."
Barsch shared his story with News4 to spread the word about living donor transplants. For more information, you can visit the National Kidney Foundation website.
