By Luis Sanchez

Robert Watson has three extra days a week to watch NASCAR.

The Cleveland man had to go to a clinic three days a week for kidney dialysis until Rachel Dissell, his niece and Kent State alumna, donated one of her kidneys to him.

Now, he can spend the time doing the things he enjoys in life.

Watson was diagnosed with hypertensive renal failure at 39 and has been on a waiting list for a kidney transplant for the past seven years. High blood pressure caused the condition, damaging the kidneys.

“With my bad kidney they gave me five years,” Watson said, referring to how much time he would live had his niece not given him the kidney when she did.

“Even with dialysis you can’t clean all the blood,” Watson said. “The leftover toxins accumulate until they eventually kill you.”

Dissell, who is a reporter at the Daily News-Record in Harrisonburg, Va., took time off from work to travel to Cleveland and provide her uncle with the life-saving organ.

After everything was over and both of them were in recovery, Dissell said, “It makes me feel a little uncomfortable to have someone indebted to me that much.

“He is really young and he deserves to work and be with his children, not go to dialysis three times a week.”