Co-worker's Contribution: A Kidney

By: Todd Shields After more than 20 years as colleagues at The Washington Post, business writers Warren Brown and Martha McNeil Hamilton have grown close -- so close that Hamilton donated a kidney to Brown.

Both are recovering nicely from their Nov. 20 operations, said Brown, 53. "I'm extremely grateful," he said, calling the act by Hamilton, 55, "more of a gift than I even imagined I could receive."

It was Brown's second kidney transplant -- the first came from his wife, Mary Anne -- and Hamilton long had said she would be happy to donate. "If you're a friend of Martha's, that's just the way she is," Brown said.

In a first-person article run by the Post last week, Brown told readers, "I have another chance, thanks to yet another woman."

To see the package of articles and first-person accounts, visit http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20169-2001Dec10.html.