When St\u00e9phane Trawalter moved to San Diego from his native France a couple years ago, he had one thing on his mind: surfing. Living in an RV, he surfed constantly, even though the only board he could afford was of poor quality. That\u2019s when he met Kai Buanoi. A veteran of the surf and of Desert Storm, the Hawaii-born Buanoi took Trawalter under his wing, offering him friendship and what money he could, quickly becoming “like a brother” to Trawalter. “I was a weird French guy living on the beach who wanted to surf. He took care of me out of the blue,” Trawalter said. “My dream was to have a good board, and Kai, after only knowing me one month, took me to his bank and forwarded me money so I could buy my dream surfboard. He doesn\u2019t have a lot of money \u2014 he was struggling, too. He just wants to make people happy.” So when Buanoi\u2019s kidneys shut down \u2014 a side effect of chemical agents he was exposed to in Desert Storm \u2014 Trawalter didn\u2019t hesitate to step in and help his friend. He offered Buanoi one of his kidneys, and after many extensive tests over the course of about a year and a half, it was discovered that Trawalter\u2019s kidney was, in fact, a match for Buanoi. “It\u2019s sad because Kai\u2019s on dialysis and spends about six hours a day at the VA,” Trawalter said. “He has a terrible life right now, and I wanted to do something. I\u2019m well aware of the risks and what to expect. I want to change his life.” On Feb. 28, Trawalter will get the chance to do that. The pair will fly to the VA hospital in Portland, where Buanoi will get his new healthy kidney. Because Buanoi is a veteran, both his and Trawalter\u2019s surgery costs are covered. What\u2019s not included in that coverage, however, is Trawalter\u2019s lost wages as he lies in bed recovering for two months. To that end, a fundraiser was held at Voulez Vous in La Jolla Shores \u2014 where Trawalter is a server and nighttime manager \u2014 on Jan. 13. The event, he said, was a “great success. Just unbelievable.” The fundraiser was so successful, in fact, that Trawalter is not asking for any more donations toward his lost wages and recovery time. Instead, he said, he simply wants to get the word out about becoming an organ donor. “My goal is to put the word out there about donating,” he said. “There are so many more people that are waiting for an organ … I\u2019m just trying to reach as many people as I can and urge them to go online and sign up to become a donor. It\u2019s so important.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When St\u00e9phane Trawalter moved to San Diego from his native France a couple years ago, he had one thing on his mind: surfing. Living in an RV, he surfed constantly, even though the only board he could afford was of poor quality. That\u2019s when he met Kai Buanoi. A veteran of the surf and of […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":270407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"La Jolla surfer helps friend in need \u2014 with the gift of a kidney","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}