Five years after being given a new lease on life by a total stranger, Josmar Spiteri feels he has gained back the freedom he lost when his kidneys failed at the age of 26.

Josmar’s life turned upside down when, 10 years ago, he was admitted to hospital following complications from a throat infection.

He was told that had he not gone to hospital when he did, he would have died within 15 days.

Both his kidneys had failed and, for the next five years, he spent eight hours a day hooked to a dialysis machine.

Willing to give him one of her own kidneys, his mother, Marina underwent tests without telling him and she was a match.

“My wish was: I had given birth to him and I wanted to, symbolically, give him his life back. However, it was not meant to be.

“The medics found a tumour on the adrenal glands which they treated me for. But they feared future complications and I was told they would not demolish a church to build another one.”

Hooked up to machine 8 hours a day for five years

Marina recalls how challenging it was to see her son locked up in a room, unable to move for eight long hours without being able to do anything about it.

Then, one day five years ago, while Josmar was at hospital for a regular check-up, he was told they had found a match.

On the eve of the surgery, Josmar learnt that his donor was Ivan Bartolo.

The Nationalist MP’s journey to become a live donor started a couple of years before, during house visits.

Ivan, who fears anything to do with blood, needles and hospitals, had met the mother of a police superintendent in need of a kidney donor.

He immediately set off on a mission to look for a prospective donor but months later decided to put his fears aside and sign up for the donation himself.

The two were not a match but the MP decided to go ahead and donate a kidney to another person, no matter who it may be.

When Times of Malta spoke to Ivan soon after the successful surgery in the summer of 2017, he had compared being told that the kidney was functioning well to being told he had “just had a child”.

Five years on, Ivan recalls that he had initially wanted to keep the donation under wraps but the news soon spread when, in a public statement, Speaker Anġlu Farrugia had honoured his “noble and altruistic” gesture. And, while undergoing the procedure, tributes had started pouring in on his social media page.

Nowadays, he told Times of Malta, he speaks about the donation just to raise awareness and, hopefully, encourage others to become donors.

Ivan Bartolo and Josmar Spiteri meeting for the first time after surgery in 2017.

Life is short. I want to make the best of it: Ivan Bartolo

“Some had asked me: what if your mum – who at the time was being treated for cancer – needs it in the future? And what if your remaining kidney fails?

“But I know life is short. I want to make the best of the short life we have. The best moments in life are not contesting an election and winning it. The best moments are helping improve someone else’s life, if only temporarily, such as when you share your food with someone else. I wish others could experience this same feeling.”

Now that he has just one kidney, doesn’t he live in fear?

“I take care of the one I have remaining – I’m careful about what I drink and eat – but I don’t think about what might happen. If it has to happen, it will happen.

“After all, I never thought I would one day be a donor. I’m very scared of blood and needles: I remember I was petrified when I was told I was going to be pricked with a blood thinner before the actual surgery… and I relive that fear every six months when I turn up for my routine check-ups.

“But the staff at the renal unit are extremely accommodating and I’m provided with the best care. It’s all worth it in the end.”