A WIFE has given her husband the gift of life by donating a kidney for transplant.

Mike Fry, 60, is celebrating a new lease of life after his wife Mary went under the knife in a life-saving operation.

The couple, of Preston in Weymouth, beat all the odds when tests showed Mrs Fry's kidney was an exact match.

Just three months after surgery, the father-of-three is no longer wired up to a dialysis machine every night but starting to live a normal life.

Care home manager Mr Fry said: "There was no way I could ask Mary to do this, she had to make up her own mind.

"I thought the risks were too great for this to work and we were lucky that everything matched. I am so grateful, I can't believe I am back home after all I've been through.

"I'm getting stronger and stronger every day and looking forward to going back to work. Although this is a new lease of life for me, I will always be on medication and need blood tests to check my body is not rejecting the kidney."

Originally from Cerne Abbas, Mr Fry was struck down with renal failure in 2000 and spent five years waiting for a cadaver organ to become available.

The couple, who have been married for 35 years and own Weymouth care homes Friary House and Kingsley House, then decided to try the unrelated live donor transplant technique on the NHS - and in May, surgeons performed the two-hour operations at Southmead Hospital in Bristol.

The couple started making plans for their dream holiday as they lay opposite other in the recovery ward.

Nurse practitioner Mrs Fry, 56, said: "It felt like the right thing for me to do and we thought we had nothing to lose. Mike could not talk about it too much because it made him cry.

"I was only in hospital for five days and now I'm surviving well on one kidney, while Mike has three. At first it was a bit strange knowing there was a bit of me inside him."

Mr and Mrs Fry spoke of the operations during the BBC's DoNation week to raise awareness of the issues related to organ donation through programmes on television, radio and its website.

The couple have praised staff at Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester for their support and urged other people to save lives by signing up to the NHS Organ Donor Register.

Join the NHS Organ Donor Register by telephoning 0845 60 60 400 or by visiting www.uktransplant.org.uk

KIDNEY TRANSPLANT: THE FACTS

Kidney failure means restricting fluid intake to 500ml a day, leaving patients with nagging thirst and intense fatigue.

The average wait for an adult kidney transplant is 729 days.

A transplant costs £56,000 for the first five years compared to £148,000 if the patient is left on dialysis.