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TUCSON - It is rare to find a zest for life like that of Barry Guimont.

Facing a kidney transplant and a handful of other health issues he has always come out on top. Last week he returned from competing against other transplant recipients in the Transplant Games in Wisconsin.

His story is one about the will to live and the power of a positive attitude.

"You've got two choices you can lay down and wait for the next shoe to drop or you can just push on and live your life and I choose to live," said Guimont.

At the start of his adult life in 1978, Guimont found out he would need a kidney transplant.

Four years later he received the call, a 50-year-old woman who was a marathon runner had died and with that his chance at life.

"It's just like flipping a switch all the sudden you go from being lethargic to having energy and it just gets better and better every day; you're getting stronger every day," said Guimont.

That was until an infection took hold of his body and yet another near brush with death.

Luckily he recovered and eight months later he went on to win the Minnesota $100,000 Classic bowling tournament and received a touching letter from President Ronald Reagan.

"The human spirit is an amazing phenomenon. In some it flickers and some it blazes, yours is shining beacon of light," read Guimont of the letter.

In 2008, when he found out he had brain cancer once again his will to live was greater than the disease.

He left the hospital just 48 hours after surgery to remove the tumor.

"That first ride I did 10 days after brain surgery was 25 miles that was easy ride. Then in a month I was doing 50, 60 miles and I was doing the top of Mount Lemmon in a month and half," he said.

"We all come from different walks of life and we have our own hurdles and barriers that we have to overcome and that's what Barry does he inspires you to leap those barriers and overcome those hardships," said friend Don Regole.

Guimont pushes his body past even what the doctors feel comfortable.

As an extremist it's only logical and he has a kidney that is equally extreme.

"It's been through the wars. It's failed several times from my health instances and now the kidney is almost 78 years old," said Guimont.

This is amazing in itself. The doctors thought the kidney would last five years.

"If you look at one isolated instance you would go ‘oh my god brain cancer and all this stuff' but it doesn't faze me. I was determined after the brain cancer there was no way it was going to knock me down," he said.

The will to live and the determination to make it happen all because one woman made the choice that if her life ended another one would go on.

Guimont speaks to others about the importance of organ donation and says a person is capable of saving up to 30 people's lives if they are an organ donor.

For more information go to www.barryguimont.com.