Transplant donor a match made in radio

Transplant donor a match made in radio
DJ grants more than listener request

Updated: Thursday, 16 Jul 2009, 8:12 AM EDT
Published : Thursday, 16 Jul 2009, 8:11 AM EDT

* Reporter: Maria Medina
* Web Producer: Bill Diven

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) - An Albuquerque man who had been on a waiting list for a kidney transplant in New Mexico and Arizona learned that he didn't need to go that far or wait that long to get the life-saving gift.

Ed Ortega was simply a listener of 104.1's The Edge. He would call into Joe Toth's radio show to comment on issues. Toth is known as "Dex" on the airwaves.

Ortega told the DJ that diabetes had taken his sight.

"We call him the blind guy," Toth said. "He's been calling us for a little over a year."

"We threw out the idea of doing movie reviews for the blind," said Ortega.

So that's what Ortega would do. Then last year doctors told him the diabetes caused his kidneys to fail and that he needed a transplant or could die in less than year.

Doctors also told him it could take up to five years to get a call that a donor was available. In the meantime, Ortega undergoes dialysis several times a week.

"He always calls us when he's in that dialysis chair," Toth said.

During one of those calls Toth asked his listener what it would take to get a kidney transplant. Not very much, Ortega said, just a match in blood types.

"After he told me I was like, 'Well I'll give you mine,'" Toth said. "And I honestly just don't see why not, you know?"

At the time Toth offered him a kidney the two had never met.

"I cried," Ortega said. "I cried, got off the phone with him and called my wife immediately."

It turned out Toth and Ortega are a match but not just in blood type. Also as friends.

"This is probably the third time we met in person," Toth said at a 104.1 bash at the Launchpad Wednesday. "He usually just cracks jokes about mowing the lawn and trimming his bushes."

Toth will have to go through more testing before the actual transplant, but it's still not smooth sailing afterward for Ortega.

He also needs a pancreas. He's on Arizona's waiting list for that, too.

Ortega said he must raise $40,000 for his kidney transplant. His wife is also disabled and can't work.

But he can't get a pancreas without a kidney. Toth has given him an opportunity to get to that last step in order to get rid of his diabetes.

"It's amazing that somebody would come out and do that," Ortega said. "Especially somebody you don't even know, that you've never really met in person."

Ortega has set up a Web site to accept donations for his surgery at edstransplant.com .

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