TWO sisters have been recovering in hospital after one gave the other the gift of life - a kidney.

Gloria Cox, 62, from Malpas, Newport, had been dialysis on and off since she first went into renal failure at the age of 41, and was told by doctors if she did not receive a donor kidney in the next seven years, a transplant would be impossible.

But due to a low level of antibodies in her system, the new kidney had to come from a living donor.

Mrs Cox's whole family - including her 87-year-old mother Ruby and her brother Richard who lives in New Zealand - volunteered to undergo tests to see if they were eligible.

In the end Mrs Cox's younger sister Sandra Bale, 54, was a perfect match, and she started on a year's worth of rigorous testing.

"My sister needed a kidney and it was best to come a live donor, so I went forward," Ms Bale, from Duffryn, told the Argus.

"She has been fantastic to me over the years and I want to see her live a normal life. Every time she has dialysis it weakens her heart and I'm not going to see her go."

Ms Bale, who is being supported by her fiance Robert Edwards and children Ryan and Lisa Cheadle, said she and her sister were recovering well after the operation.

"Everything went well and Gloria is responding well to my kidney," she said following a seven-hour procedure under full anaesthetic at Cardiff's University Hospital of Wales on Tuesday.

"We have had plenty of visitors, mainly family. I am feeling a bit weak and queasy but other than that OK."

Mrs Cox, who previously had a transplanted kidney in 1998 which only lasted nine years, said of her sister: "Sandra is giving me the kidney and the gift of life, there is nothing I can give her that could replace it."

The sisters were due to be allowed home last night.