A Calgary man who decided to donate his kidney had first offered it to a friend who posted online, but ended up giving it to an old high school classmate. Shamus Neeson says it’s one of the best things he’s ever done.

Neeson has given blood over 100 times and when a Facebook friend shared the story of a woman in need of a kidney, he jumped at the chance to help.

“Originally I was scheduled to donate a kidney to my friend Lynne and everything was going well,” Neeson told Global News. “And then I saw on Facebook that she was being prepped for surgery and she was getting one.”

Neeson was off the hook after a tragic car accident provided a donor for Lynne Prodniuk—along with another kidney patient. But after having started the process to give someone the gift of an organ, he decided to go ahead and find someone else.

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First he entered the Anonymous Living Donor Program, before coming across someone from his own past: Nelson Nobrega was a father suffering from kidney failure.

“We played football together, we had classes together.” “We graduated in 1995 from St. Mary’s High School here in Calgary,” he said.

If a patient can’t find a living donor, the wait for a kidney is currently between five and seven years in Canada, according to one Foothills hospital doctor.

“The gap between the supply of organs and the organs available is getting bigger every year,” transplant surgeon Dr. Mauricio Monroy-Cuadros said. “The amount of organs we get from deceased donors is kind of steady, so that’s why living donations have become an important source of organs for transplantation.”

The life expectancy for transplant patients who receive a kidney from a living donor is double that of someone who receives a kidney from a person who has died.

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But giving an organ is not without risk and sacrifice: Neeson has taken three months off work to recover.

Luckily, he has no regrets.

“I think this whole experience has been so positive. I would encourage other people to look into it.” Tweet This

Living donors can recoup some of the expenses they incur while giving their kidneys. The Kidney Foundation has a program that helps cover the costs of things like lost wages during recovery time, as well as hospital parking.

With files from Erika Tucker