If you look at Sarah Pederson and Tricia Duyfhuizen, their bond of friendship is clear as day. But, it’s a bond you can’t see that truly makes the pair remarkable.

“Now we kinda’ joke and say we're joined at the hip literally because that's where her left kidney now happily resides,” Duyfhuizen said.

That’s right. They’re not just sharing friendship…they’re sharing a kidney.

The journey began years ago, when Tricia first came to Sarah as a massage client. Over a number of sessions and lots of laughs, their friendship grew. Until last spring when Tricia suffered kidney failure.

Kidney donor, Sarah Pederson said, “The first word's that popped out of my mouth were, I have two kidneys you want one of mine?”

After a battery of tests and trials, Tricia discovered her family wasn’t a match. But, Sarah was.

“I think we cried a little bit, we were excited,” Pederson said. “I had a pretty confident feeling the whole time that I would be a match and so it was just confirmation that my intuition was right.”

So together, Sarah and Tricia prepared for surgery, and the trial of a lifetime.

“Well surgery you're out so that was the easy part,” Pederson said. “The first week was pretty hard because they do cut between your abdominal muscles so anytime I had to sit down or lay down or stand up I needed help.”

Sarah says it took her nearly five months to fully recover, but says now they’re both happy, healthy and grateful to be alive.

“It’s incredibly moving,” Duyfhuizen said. “And, you know, how do you begin to thank someone for giving you such a selfless gift? And what is truly the gift of life because you know I have my health today because of Sarah.”

And though they have a bond that may be stronger than most, the two say surgery hasn’t changed much, especially not their humor.

“If anything Tricia's taken on a couple of my personality traits, she likes dark beer now, but that's about it,” Pederson said.

According to the National Kidney Foundation, there are two different types of kidney transplants. Those that come from living donors, as in the case of Sarah and Tricia, and those that come from non-living donors.

Statistics from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network show that 6,436 living donors from throughout the United States shared a kidney in 2006.

The number of living donors in Wisconsin last year came in at 184.

That’s just two short of the highest number of kidney donations in the state, set a year earlier, in 2005.

The network’s statistics go back 19 years.