VANCOUVER -- Not all Christmas presents come neatly wrapped or found beneath the tree.
That’s certainly the case with one of the gifts Tim Hiscock got this year, which has literally given him a new lease on life.
“I get to be with my family. It's the best Christmas present I could have ever gotten,” he said.
It’s been almost exactly one year since Hiscock had a fateful encounter with Andrew White, better known as Skully, his outgoing hot dog vendor.
Skully remembers seeing his frequent customer looking alarmingly sick.
“On Dec. 8, he came out of the Canadian Tire and he looked 100 years old. He looked awful, double his age,” Skully said.
Hiscock had just found out that his Diabetes had triggered his kidneys to fail and he needed to find a donor.
“(Skully) said, ‘Well, if I'm a match, you can have mine,’” Hiscock said, recalling the interaction. “I didn’t really think of it too much.”
Five months before that, Skully didn’t even know Hiscock’s name.
But, true to his words, Skully got a blood test and started to get the screening underway.
They soon found out he was a match.
They had to wait several months for Hiscock to get all his vaccinations up to date before they could perform the surgery.
“He's the very first person who I even told. It’s a pretty big thing, a big miracle,” Hiscock said. “I'm blessed to have him in my life. He's a really super cool guy.”
On Monday, Dec. 14, Skully donated his kidney.
They said the surgery was a success and Hiscock’s body has accepted the new organ.
Both are recovering at home.
Skully cannot lift heavy items and won’t be able to return to work right away, but when he does, he already has a plan to encourage more customers to join the donor’s list and give the gift of life.
In exchange, he’s offering a lifetime of free, foot-long hot dogs
“You can save other people,” Skully said. “And look at me, I'm walking around after 48 hours of being chopped up. Yeah, there's still little tenderness in here, but other than that, I'll be back to normal in no time.”
Hiscock said his heart goes out to those who are on the waiting list for a donor, describing his time on dialysis as unbearable.
“I mean, it's keeping you going, but it's also making you more sick as you go down the road,” he said. “Skully came out of nowhere and saved my life.”