A woman has become best friends with the stranger she saved by giving him a kidney.
Chelsea Naylor, 31, decided she wanted to donate a kidney to a stranger after seeing a post on social media about organ donation.
She said she had always hoped that whoever received her organ would want to meet her.
The law student underwent the three-hour operation.
She was later told that her kidney went to Junior Foss, 36, after his kidney started to fail following a stroke in 2017.
Chelsea and Junior met up after their operation this past April and quickly became friends.
Chelsea, from Washington DC, said: "It feels really cool to be able to do this for someone.
"We met a couple of days later and it was a little awkward at first but then we chatted for about 20 minutes.
"Now he treats me like family and tells me he loves me. Junior is amazing. He's the unofficial mayor of his town.
"He puts on the 4th of July fireworks and everyone stops to say hello when they see him.
"He takes me out on his lake, if you're around when he's putting on a barbecue, you're invited to the barbecue.
"People really love and respect him. If I bring a friend to meet him, they're family too.
"He's really fun and hilarious."
Junior, from Woodbridge, Virginia, added: "I always wanted to meet the donor to say thank you and to make a new friend.
"It's such a blessing for a stranger to do this.
"Developing a friendship with Chelsea has been amazing and cool.
"Meeting her for the first time was wonderful. She's an amazing person, I was holding back the tears.
"We have a really nice friendship now. We hang out and she's coming to celebrate my birthday with me at the weekend."
Landscaper Junior was facing spending the rest of his life on dialysis unless he received a new kidney.
Junior added: "I'd been waiting for a kidney since 2018 and getting the call saying they'd found one was amazing, it was the best thing ever.
"Life with my new kidney is amazing. I got my life back. I can do things that I couldn't do before like get back on the water and I haven't been able to do that for two years."
The pair meet up once a month and celebrate family birthdays together.
Chelsea always knew she wanted to meet the person who received her kidney and had hoped to form a friendship with them.
She said: "I didn't know who the kidney would go to but I always knew I wanted to meet them.
"Donors have to have counselling before and they really hammered home that I may never know who the kidney went to.
"There's no guarantee I'd get to meet them or that the kidney would take.
"When I was in the recovery room, there was a man across from me who was groggy from the anaesthetic. He was telling the nurses how much he loves his daughters and I had a feeling he was the man and it was.
"We've got the best-case scenario because we get on so well."
Chelsea and Junior are telling their story to encourage others to look into organ donation.
Chelsea said: "It is a small sacrifice for a huge impact on someone else's life."
She added: "People think it takes a massive toll on the body but I was back to normal within a couple of weeks.
"If you're a healthy person, there's no life change.
"It took two or three weeks of my time in exchange for an extra 15 years of Junior's life. It's an incredible payoff."
