By Jamie Strickland
After years of searching, trying and hoping, Johnston County resident Gray Sasser was beginning to accept the fact that he might lose his life to the kidney disease he was battling.
“I was preparing to go home and be with my parents and other people we’ve lost, but God had other plans,” he said. “It was a miracle all around.”
In 2017, Sasser had one of his kidneys removed due to an inoperable mass. Soon after that, his remaining healthy kidney began to fail, and he found himself in need of a donor.
We first told his story in the January 2024 issue of JNOW, and in August of 2025 we ran an update saying that he was still in need and had signed up with the National Kidney Registry, which facilitates a paired exchange process where incompatible donors and recipients swap with others to find a match, so both of their loved ones receive kidneys.
It was that article that led to Sasser receiving the organ he needed to save his life.
“My donor was part of the exchange program, and their relative had shown them the article in the magazine, and so they chose me,” he said. “They don’t want anyone to know their name, but I am so thankful.”
On Dec. 19, 2025, Sasser received the phone call that he would receive the kidney transplant and underwent surgery at Duke University Hospital weeks later on Jan. 7.
Before that, he had been spreading the word through every means possible, including T-shirts, magnets and bumper stickers with the “Gray needs a kidney” message and reaching out to local and social media to spread the word.
“I just knew I had more life to live,” he said. “You’ve got to be vigilant and use every possible means to get the word out. You have to constantly advocate for yourself.”
Sasser said his recovery is going great and he feels better than he has in many years.
“It was painful when I woke up, just from the massive incision,” he said. “But I got up and started walking… This morning I walked 2 ¼ miles. I’m doing just fine.”
Over the past few months he’s had to stay away from crowds and take medication to ensure his body doesn’t reject the kidney or develop an infection, but so far, so good.
“It’s working!” he said. “I feel good and I take the least amount of blood pressure medicine I’ve ever taken since my 30s.”
At 76 years old, Sasser said some in the medical field didn’t consider him a good surgical candidate because of his age, but his surgeon told him physiologically, he was much younger and she believed that with a healthy kidney he could live for many more productive years.
“She said that the kidney should last 20 or more years and that there’s no reason I can’t live well into my 90s or beyond.”
He plans to use that time to play an active role in his family and church and to share the message of what he believes God has done in his life.
“To me, it’s a major testimony,” he said. “God has blessed me and my family, and JNOW has been an integral part of this blessing.”
