Beloved Brooklyn pizzeria saves dying customer by finding him a kidney donor: I dont know how I got to be so lucky

One of Brooklyn’s most famous pizza men cooked up a miracle for a customer in need.When Mark Iacono, owner of wood-fired-pizza institution Lucali in Carroll Gardens, learned his patron and friend Theo Alano, 54, was suffering from end-stage kidney disease, he was devastated.Desperate to help in some way, Iacono shared a post with his 245,000 Instagram followers in December of 2023, writing that Alano, a creative director, was looking for a kidney donor.In May 2022, Alano contracted a severe case of COVID-19 on a flight home from Ireland to New York City.Then 52-years-old, he had previously been healthy, but he went downhill quickly, nearing death.

Doctors discovered he had end-stage kidney disease and would have to start dialysis.But, before he could do that, his health worsened quickly.

In early 2023, two friends rushed him to the emergency room after he grew bed-ridden and frail and his skin turned yellow.Doctors at Lenox Hill Hospital said he was in kidney failure.“It was Ash Wednesday, and the nurse pulled my friends aside and said, ‘your friend probably has an hour to live,'” Alano recalled.

He survived, thanks to dialysis — a treatment that removes fluid and waste from the blood — and began regular sessions at the Southern Manhattan Dialysis Center in Greenwich Village.The treatment was exhausting.

Three mornings a week, he’d wake up at 3:30 a.m.for four-hour sessions.

A kidney donation was his best hope for the long term, but there was a 10-year waitlist for a donor through the New York State Donate Life Registry.He began praying for a miracle — and shared a plea for a potential living donor with his 1,659 followers on Instagram.“If I have ever impacted your life or if anyone has changed your life in some form –  I challenge you to pay it forward and consider donating a kidney to me,” Alano wrote in the post.

He even got stars like Jessica Alba, whom he had met through a mutual friend, to repost his plea.But it was beloved pizza...