A pizzeria owner managed to help save one of his regular customer’s lives with a simple post on social media.
Mark Iacono, who runs the popular Brooklyn-based pizzeria Lucali, shared the message. Lucali has earned a reputation as one of the best in the area, drawing in some big names, including Ed Sheeran, David Beckham, Jimmy Fallon, and Paul McCartney.
Theo Alano, a frequent visitor to the pizzeria, became seriously ill with COVID in 2022.
His health took a sharp decline, and last year, doctors told him he was facing kidney failure with no time to lose.
His situation was so dire that a nurse reportedly told one of Theo’s friends who had rushed him to the hospital that he had just about an hour to live, as Theo shared with The New York Post.
Dialysis helped him survive, but to keep going, he had to undergo three four-hour dialysis sessions each week.
The long-term solution was to find a kidney donor, but the wait time on New York’s Donate Life Registry list can be up to 10 years, according to the New York Post.
Desperate to get off dialysis and find a donor faster, Theo posted his plea on Instagram.
Mark, the pizzeria owner, came across Theo’s post and shared it with his 246,000 Instagram followers, hoping someone might be able to help.
This is where Rusty Rastello, a longtime fan of Lucali, stumbled upon the post and learned about Theo’s struggle.
Rusty felt a strong connection to Theo’s story, as he’d seen a similar journey before: his uncle, whom he viewed as a father figure, had donated a kidney to his own brother over three decades ago.
Rusty began looking into what he needed to do to become a kidney donor, and in December 2023, he met Theo for the first time.
Though they had never met before, Theo said it felt as though he had known Rusty forever.
Rusty went through a series of medical tests to see if he could be a match for Theo, and incredibly, he was.
In May 2024, they received the official confirmation, and by August, both men were in surgery.
Rusty’s surgery took around three hours, while Theo’s was a bit more complex, lasting six hours.
Rusty recalled the overwhelming emotion he felt when he heard that his kidney had been accepted by Theo’s body.
“I just started crying. I still don’t even know what that emotion was – it was somewhere between relief and excitement,” he shared.
“We had become friends at this point and it was an immense amount of gratitude that we both came through it. When I saw him — light had come to his eyes, color to his face. It was remarkable how quickly he recovered.”
Both men were able to leave the hospital just days after the surgery and are continuing to recover well.
Now, thanks to the pizzeria owner Mark, Theo and Rusty have formed a lasting friendship.
