"My story is actually pretty simple. I always said if my dad ever needs a kidney I'd give him one. It only took two and a half years to do it. He had been on dialysis for that time and thinking he would be ok doing this I was wrong. I was slowly watching him deteriorate and it was on my mind daily. So in December last year my wife and I started to seriously talk about it and over a few months of discussion we decided to start researching the process. It was strange coincidence that when we decided to do this signs started popping up everywhere. On tv, on the radio, on Facebook and in sports. One thing that really influenced me was seeing a post from the Lakers about a lady who had given a kidney and she was being honored at a game in 2015. Turns out, her surgeon was my dads surgeon! It was like when you buy a new car all of a sudden you see the same car everywhere, my signs where everywhere! So in February I told my dad and we contacted UCLA to start the process. We matched and I was strangely and completely healthy. I was completely prepared to go into the exchange program if we did not match. That was very inspiring to me. My process was very smooth my dad had a few hurdles to get past and with my schedule August was the perfect fit. Surgery was August 9 and for me I was cleared to go back to work nine days later. My dad is doing great but is having trouble with anemia that they are working on. My recovery was amazingly quick and besides from the laparoscopic gas pains very smooth. I feel very lucky and blessed to have been in this program"
-Brian Gilliam
"I was diagnosed with FSGS at 5 years old and have been working with nephrologists my whole life, I always knew that at some point I would require dialysis and a transplant. I moved to Los Angeles in 2016 after spending the past 12 years in Hong Kong and working myself into the ICU. I came to Los Angeles, to take a breather, focus on my health, go back to College and re-evaluate life. I then met one of Dr. Rastogi’s teammates and he told me about a story of a person about my age who didn’t have a donor and so he went to Facebook, initially the response to his request was negative and he gave up and stopped checking his account. A few weeks later, he logged in and he had received several messages from someone wanting to donate their Kidney to him..."
Read Ravi Bhojwani's Story
