Generosity of stranger will help Colorado man who has waited 5 years for new kidney
For the last five years, Roger "Bubba" Morales has been looking for a kidney. Morales, who lives in Aurora, currently has dialysis three days a week for four hours a day.
"Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I get up at 3:30 in the morning," he said.
The 75-year-old Coloradan found out he needed a new kidney in 2019, but he was told he was too old to go on the transplant list.
Bubba's fiancé Cheryl decided to take matters into her own hands and made business cards and signs, and even put a sign on the pack of his card reading, "Bubba Needs A Kidney" in big, bold, green letters.
"I think everybody kind of laughed at me when I said I wanted to put it on his car," Cheryl recalls. "It worked."
In April, that sign caught the attention of Abby Lutalo, who was behind Bubba and Cheryl in traffic.
"When she pulled in beside us, I said, 'You're a lousy driver. Did you cut her off?'" recalls Cheryl of the moments before they met Abby.
"She jumped out of her car and said, 'Who needs a kidney?'"
It's a moment that Lutalo recalls fondly, "I noticed them in traffic like 30 seconds before, and we pulled into the parking lot and it turns out, everything worked out."
"I had a family member pass away. One of her final wishes was to donate all of her organs. That's something that always left an impression on me and made me feel like if I ever had the opportunity to donate... I would," said Lutalo.
"She's a saint. She's an angel from heaven," said Bubba.
Bubba and Abby will undergo surgery on Oct. 14.
"My friends joke, 'Bubba, we can't keep up with you now, how are we going to keep up with you when you have a new kidney?'" Bubba says about life after the transplant.
He says he and Cheryl are looking forward to going back to New York to reconnect with family once the surgery is over and he is cleared for travel.