A Saskatoon man has a new lease on life thanks to his daughter and a complete stranger.

Wayne Leonhardt was facing a lifetime on dialysis, or worse, until his daughter decided to step in, with the help of a unique program that matches kidney transplant recipients with donors.

Leonhardt and his daughter Patricia share a unique bond. After suffering from kidney failure for a second time in his life, Wayne underwent a kidney transplant and Patricia donated one of hers. It's part of a program called the Living Donor Paired Exchange.

"The program almost guarantees one of your loved ones gets a transplant, whereas waiting for a deceased donor is in my case, probably wouldn't happen," said Leonhardt.

The LDPE registry facilitates living kidney donations between patients with a willing but incompatible donor and another pair in the same situation. It is a partnership between Canadian Blood Services and transplant programs across the country.

In the Leonhardt's case, Patricia was willing to give one of her kidneys to her dad.

"Right from when we knew he needed a kidney, I knew I had to do it. I wanted to," said Patricia. "He's my dad and I love him. That's the bottom line."

But after extensive testing, she was told hers wasn't compatible. In the end, her kidney went to an anonymous patient -- and a match from another donor came back to her father.

"Words can hardly express how you feel and what you can tell them because it's such a wonderful gift to be able to feel this good again," said Leonhardt.

The Living Donor Paired Exchange program began as a pilot project in 2009 in a handful of provinces. Since then it's expanded to the rest of the country with the ultimate goal of reducing the number of people waiting for a kidney transplant.

Raylene Matlock is the head of the Saskatchewan Transplant Program, and has noticed more matches with the new system in place. "It's a great success for the people that have waited a long time and don't have a donor or they have a donor but the donor isn't compatible with them."

It also means patients waiting for a deceased donor are more likely to get a match. For people like Leonhardt the exchange program gave him a new lease on life...one without dialysis.

So far, the living donor exchange program has done three kidney transplants for Saskatchewan patients.