Ray Williams had been on dialysis for eight years. During that time he had also been on the waiting list for a transplant. Then one day, the phone  rang. "We think we have a kidney for you."

On April 3, just 12 hours after getting "the call," the 57-year old college professor was undergoing a three-hour kidney trans-plant operation. That special call - the one anticipated by almost 45,000 patients in the United States suffering from severe kidney disease and awaiting transplantation - had finally come.

"Although I knew I had high blood pressure, I was in pretty good health and worked out regularly," said Ray. "Then one day I was taking a break in the cafeteria from working on my Ph.D., and I fainted. I woke up in the emergency room, followed by my doctor telling me that my kidneys had failed and I had to go on dialysis immediately."

Ray underwent dialysis three times a week, four hours a day, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Beginning in 1996, Ray's treatments took place at Renal Care Group's Nashville center. There, man-made machines did what his kidneys could not.

Without dialysis, Ray and 260,000 others like him wouldn't survive. Dialysis keeps them alive and healthy, helps them manage their disease, gives them back some element of control over their lives.

For Ray, dialysis meant being able to maintain his daily schedule. Thanks to the assistance of Renal Care Group social workers and facilities across the country, Ray was able to travel without dramatically altering his routine until a donor match was found.

Then, after eight years of dialysis, a transplant match was located, and things moved quickly. His hospital stay lasted only five days. Once home, Ray had to return to the hospital every morning for 14 days to have his vital signs monitored and to ensure that his body wasn't rejecting the kidney. Ultimately, Ray resumed his normal activities within six weeks.

"When I was first told I had high blood pressure, I was young and thought nothing serious would happen to me," Ray said. "The one thing I've learned through all of this is that when you find you have a medical problem, you need to get under the care of an expert doctor and facility and take the medicine they recommend to stay healthy."

Ray's journey from kidney failure to dialysis - and ultimately a transplant - is one of the many success stories we never tire of telling. These are the real highlights of Renal Care Group's year.