VANCOUVER -- Doctors told Andrew “Skully” White to take it easy. After all, he just underwent major surgery.
But he’s feeling great most days since donating his kidney to a customer.
“Am I supposed to be working? Technically no,” said the man everyone calls Skully. “I do get in trouble. I don’t know how the surgeons found out, I thought my house was bugged.“
Instead of resting, he’s back to selling hot dogs (really good ones, too) outside the Canada Tire in Abbotsford. He is also trying to help others who are in desperate need of a transplant.
Like Gavin Quon, a retired 33-year constable with the New Westminster Police Department.
Now a grandfather, Quon has hereditary kidney disease and must undergo dialyses three nights a week.
“That is the machine that keeps me alive,” he said pointing to the device in a video he made for CTV News.
His only chance at a normal life is a transplant, but his twin daughters can’t be considered, because the ailment runs in the family.
Then one of them read about a heroic hot dog vendor, and got in touch with Skully.
“He said ‘I want to help you, let’s call people,'” recalled Mikayla Quon.
In fact, Skully is trying to help 11 people find donors, and once he’s done that, he hopes to help even more.
“With the social media the way it is, and the way the customers are, we can find kidneys for other people too,” Skully said with confidence.
He admitted there are days he feels exhausted since the surgery, but that’s to be expected. Doctors believe transplants are harder on the donor than the receiver.
“Mentally he’s brought me up,” said Gavin Quon. “Because there’s hope. There’s tremendous hope.”
Indeed there is hope: three people are now being tested to see if they’re matches.
Nothing is for certain, but it’s all thanks to the efforts of a humble hot dog vendor.
