A day after receiving a kidney from a woman he had not met face-to-face until four weeks ago, Billy Gillispie on Wednesday spoke to The Dallas Morning News by phone from his hospital room at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

Gillispie, in fact, had just returned from a visit and short walk down the clinic's hallway with Ericka Downey, the 33-year-old mother of two who decided to donate one of her kidneys after reading of Gillispie's medical plight in a Dec. 16 Morning News story.

"She's doing great and I'm doing great," Gillispie said. "You never know when things change, but right now things are going fantastic."

Coach Gillispie and I out for our afternoon walk. So happy to see him doing so well. Giving God the glory. pic.twitter.com/JKD6NfziTi — Ericka Downey (@D2Diva) April 25, 2018

Tuesday's surgeries involved laparoscopic removal of Downey's left kidney and a 90-minute surgery to attach that kidney inside Gillispie, 58.

Earlier Wednesday, Downey wrote on her Facebook page of Gillispie: "His renal function is improving and his creatinine levels are coming down. The kidney is working! Praise God!"

Gillispie said his first visitors after he awoke from anesthesia were Ericka and her husband, Northeastern State (Okla.) basketball coach Mark Downey.

"I said, 'I don't really know how we got to this point, with you being here, other than God's grace. He delivered my angel in my biggest time of need in my life. It's just unbelievable.' "

Though Mark Downey had known Gillispie since the late 1990s, Ericka had never met or communicated with Gillispie until about a month after she read that he was in renal failure and needed a new kidney "ASAP."

She and Gillispie exchanged texts for the first time on Jan. 11. She sent blood and urine samples to the Mayo Clinic to find out whether she was a possible match. Then, after initial tests confirmed a match was possible, she underwent three days of testing at the Mayo Clinic last month.

Ericka Downey and Billy Gillispie didn't meet face-to-face until March 30 in San Antonio, the day before the Final Four semifinals there.

"It'll be a relationship that will last forever," Gillispie said Wednesday. "Not only with her, but with Mark. That's the thing. She's made the utmost sacrifice and he's right behind her.

"It's quite a sacrifice for him, too. He's doing so many things for us and for her. They have children and they have so much to think about. To be able to think outside most people's little box and help someone else, not only from her but the entire family, means everything."

Abdominal transplant surgeon Dr. Timucin Taner headed the surgical teams that performed the transplant. In a video interview with the Mayo Clinic News Network that was provided to The Dallas Morning News, Taner said "both the donor and the recipient are doing very well.

"It was a beautiful kidney. No problems taking it out and no problems putting it in. The kidney is working."

Taner said that 100,000 people in the United States currently are awaiting kidney transplants, but only 20,000 kidney transplants are performed annually. Of those, only about 5,000 come from living donors.

Because Downey specifically designated Gillispie as her donation recipient, he went to the top of the transplant list.

"It's amazing," Taner said. "I do this for a living, but it never ceases to amaze me what the living donors do. It is the ultimate gift, whether it's to someone they know or don't know. They are changing someone's life forever. So we cannot be more grateful to living donors and I applaud them."

When Gillispie and Downey met face-to-face for the first time, The News chronicled the moment. Gillispie's eyes were red and tear-filled after he hugged Downey.

"I don't know what would prompt anyone to do that," he said that night, voice cracking. "Other than just it's God's grace. I don't understand it, but I'm definitely appreciative of it. And it's great to meet her."

Ericka Downey (left) talks to Texas Tech coach Billy Gillispie pose for a portrait during a final four party for coaches at Ruth's Chris at the Grand Hyatt Riverwalk in San Antonio, Texas on March 30, 2018. Ericka Downey, the Oklahoma mother of two and wife of Northeastern State University basketball coach Mark Downey, told The Dallas Morning News that she received confirmation Thursday from the Mayo Clinic that she will be able to donate one of her kidneys to Billy Gillispie. (Nathan Hunsinger/The Dallas Morning News) (Nathan Hunsinger / Staff Photographer)

Although Gillispie's medical plight and Downey's offer to donate a kidney became a national story, Dr. Taner told the Mayo Clinic News Network that he was unaware that Gillispie had been a basketball coach.

"I honestly did not know the recipient was high-profile until yesterday morning," he said.

Downey said on Facebook that she likely will be able to check out of the Mayo Clinic on Thursday, but added that she planned to remain in Rochester until Sunday.

Gillispie confirmed that timetable. He said tentative plans are for him to be discharged from the Mayo Clinic on Friday, but he will remain in Rochester for about two more weeks and get daily checkups to ensure that his new kidney continues to function well and that there are no signs of a rejection by his body.