An Illinois woman donated her kidney to a total stranger. What inspired her to help him?

Nick Bohn and Molly Clyden have a forever bond, after she reached out to help him when he needed it most.

She gave him one of her kidneys after he was diagnosed with stage 5 renal failure. They were strangers at the time, but now they're not just friends, they're "kidney buddies for life."

After Bohn learned he had stage 5 renal failure, a post his family put on Facebook changed lives. He and Clyden had never met, but even before she finished reading the post, she was all in.

"I just read that he needed [a kidney], and I shot off a message right away," she said.

The process isn't simple. For a kidney transplant to work, donor and patient have to be both blood type and tissue compatible.

Clyden said she wanted to be a donor for years for a very important reason.

"I have a cousin who has now been through two kidney transplants," she said. "I was unable to donate to her, as we were not the same blood type, but I did make a promise to her and myself that if the opportunity ever came up again, that I would jump on it and donate to someone else."

Having a living donor made a huge difference for Bohn.

"If I didn't have a living donor, I'd have to go on the deceased donor list, and they told me right off the bat 3 to 5 years," he said.

Bohn is the third-generation owner of the Longbranch restaurant near Clifton, Illinois, about 70 miles south of Chicago.

He needed to get better and up to full speed as soon as he could.

"Right now, the waitlist for kidneys annually is about 50,000 people in the U.S.," said Dr. Nathalie Sela, a surgeon at Rush University Medical Center.

Sela said, when a recipient gets a kidney from a living donor, it saves time. The kidney also functions better than one from a deceased donor, but that's not all.

"With a deceased donor kidney, so a kidney that comes from someone who is deceased or dead, there's about a 15 to 30% chance the kidney will be sleepy and not work right away," she said. "The patient may require dialysis after the operation to bridge the gap until the kidney wakes up. With a living donor, the kidney works right away."

Sela said, despite what some might think, living kidney donors live life as they did before the transplant.

"We only need one kidney to live, and God has given us a spare," Sela said.

Clyden said she's living proof of that.

"As far as an everyday life, they said there's really only thing that I can't do anymore, and it's say that I have two kidneys," she said.

Insurance paid Clyden's medical bills, but friends and strangers helped pay for incidentals, like travel to Chicago for the transplant surgery.

"It's hard to put into words. I mean, it almost doesn't feel deserving. You know, I almost feel like I don't deserve all of that this. I did it because I want to," Clyden said.

Clyden and Bohn live in small Illinois farm towns and said the support from their communities has been incredible.

"The prayers, the constant check-ins, asking how we're doing, but then through like donations of food and money," Bohn said. "My neighbors have been mowing my lawn since the summer started, and they won't even let me do it."

But mostly Bohn can't believe a woman he'd never met helped save his life.

They and their loved ones are now connected forever.

"I know I have another awesome family in my corner," Clyden said. "I come from a big family anyway, so what's a few more?"

If you want to learn more about kidney donation or sign up to be a donor, go to rush.edu/living-donor.