Knock Provides Door to New Life for One Man

Oct. 11, 2007 — -- Time was running out for Paul Sucher as he sat in his Twin Falls, Idaho, home. He was in desperate need of a kidney and already was receiving dialysis three days a week.

So when vacuum cleaner salesman Jamie Howard showed up at his door to entice him into purchasing a Kirby vacuum, it may have been the last thing he wanted.

But then Sucher's girlfriend, Andi Wofford, explained how the couple was drowning in medical bills and she came up with a simple solution.

"I jokingly said to him, 'You donate a kidney and we'll buy a vacuum,'" Wofford said.

But what started as a joke turned into something more serious. After praying and talking to his wife, Howard decided to give it a try.

"If I was in his position, I would pray for something to happen for me. It was pretty much no contest," Howard said on "Good Morning America" today.

Initially, his wife was surprised.

"I was shocked, but I knew he said yes and he would go on with it," said Howard's wife, Marcy Howard. "I told him at the very beginning, 'I will support you if that's what you want to do.'"

The decision turned out to be the right move.

"We were almost a perfect match," Howard said.

In August, Howard successfully donated his kidney to Sucher at a Denver hospital.

"It's hard to believe that someone that you don't know who has no connection to you previously would be willing to give that much," Wofford said.

Howard said doctors made the process easy for him and Sucher.

"We were pretty calm all the way through everything. Everyone made it an easy experience," Howard said.

But even several weeks after donating his kidney, Howard isn't quite back to 100 percent.

"I've lost a lot of weight. I still can't be as physically active as I was before," he said, "but that is a small price to pay."

And the experience has caused Howard to become an advocate for organ donation.

"You have two kidneys, you only need one," he said. "There are a lot of things people can do in life and afterward to help others live," he added.