Donor Diaries

Choosing Life: Renal Warriors Wilson & Amy | EP 36

• Laurie Lee • Season 4 • Episode 1

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In this episode of Donor Diaries, we sit down with transplant recipient Wilson Du and living kidney donor Amy McCann, two people whose stories intertwine through determination, community, and the belief that choosing life is a daily practice.

Wilson spent five and a half years on dialysis before receiving his transplant in 2022. After a doctor told him he needed to lose 100 pounds or forget about a transplant, he confronted the shock, the shame, and the painful first steps toward change. The words choose life stayed with him and became the foundation for a journey that carried him from a ten-foot walk to an Olympic-distance triathlon and a mission to help others Outshine Their Pain. Today, Wilson is The Renal Warrior, inspiring patients to fight for their second chance.

Amy first heard Wilson’s story at their community gym and immediately volunteered to be tested as his donor. She was denied for BMI and could have stepped away, but she chose to turn the rejection into resolve. Nearly 100 pounds later, another donor matched with Wilson, yet Amy kept going. She donated her kidney to a stranger on her birthday, transforming her journey into a gift she had fought hard to give. At The Mission HQ, she now leads the Warrior Program, supporting patients and community members who walk through the doors looking for hope.

Together, Wilson and Amy share how Mission HQ became a space where dialysis patients, survivors, and neighbors can move, breathe, and rebuild without judgment. Their message is simple and powerful. Consistency matters more than intensity. Rest when you need to, and then keep going. Small steps count. Hope is built one choice at a time.

Links:

The Mission HQ

Donor Diaries Website
Donor Diaries on Facebook
GiftWorks Website
Connect with Laurie Lee

SPEAKER_04:

Doing that wasn't fair to the people that I hurt or to the people that was hurting because of my diagnosis. And I felt that I hadn't really given it much of a thought to fight and what that would even look like. Because losing a hundred pounds again is like losing a thousand pounds. But something inside me just kept on saying fight. Just do it. You're already dead. Just just fight. Just choose life. That that phrase right there, choose life, it was in my head.

SPEAKER_02:

It's your host, Lori Lee, welcoming you to season four of Donor Diaries, a podcast that explores the deeply human side of living donation and transplant with interviews with donors, recipients, and transplant professionals. These are interviews and stories that remind us what it means to be part of something so much bigger than ourselves. We're starting the season with two of my favorite humans, Wilson and Amy, a donor and recipient duo whose story is all about possibility and connection. All right. Well, Wilson and Amy, welcome to Donor Diaries. I am so excited to have you as guests today. Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, it's it's a it's a pleasure. It's fine. We're finally being able to come together for this. Love it.

SPEAKER_02:

I know. The three of us have only ever done fun things together. I don't know if you're keeping track of that like me, but we met on Martha's Vineyard. Yes. And I knew then that I wanted you on Donor Diaries because you guys have such an amazing story. And then we met up again in New York for a screening of abundance. So and oh, then then in San Francisco too. So I wonder what our fourth date will be.

SPEAKER_04:

That Martha's Vineyard, I think, kicked off everything. It opened up a whole new world for on my side of things, which led into with Amy and our community here. And it's just been all wonderful experiences. So many wonderful, uh, wonderful people from across the country. And I think the work that you're doing is fantastic.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I feel the same about the work that you guys are doing. It's um, I can't wait to dive into this podcast, but uh let's dive in. Are you ready? Let's go. Okay. So, Wilson, let's start with you. You're a kidney recipient.

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

Can you take us way back to the days before your transplant? What was your life like and what led you to needing a kidney transplant?

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, well, my life before getting diagnosed with kidney failure, it was extraordinary for for myself. You know, right out of high school, I went to college, but right in college, I got into finance, I got into real estate in the early 2000s, which was really hot market. I was just a kid, didn't really know what I was doing, making a lot of money. And, you know, that was the life. It was just work hard, play hard, probably made uh more money than any kid should have. And with that, you know, got into partying a whole lot, doing a lot of things that I shouldn't have been doing, eating it all the time without exercise, not cared, not caring about my health. I had a very fast life. And all of that just kind of came crashing to a halt. I kept on telling myself, one of these days, you know, I'll start working out, I'll start doing this and doing that, smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. And in the banking world, the finance world, every time you close a deal, you'd pop a bottle. And the more deals you close, the more bottles you popped. And so I was probably out partying more than uh most. And uh it all came crashing to a halt June of 2016. I went to the hospital for gout. And it got to the point where it was both legs, both knees. I couldn't walk. And finally I said, okay, I have to go to the hospital. When I went to the hospital, I told them it's gout, give me a cortisone shot so I could be on my way. I've done this many times before, so let's do it and let's get out of here. And they said, Well, it is gout. We're gonna fix it. And by the way, tell us about your kidney failure. And even at that moment, I had no idea what that was. And I said, Okay, fine, just fix it. What pill, surgery, get it going. I gotta get back to work, I gotta go back to making money. As we all know, that wasn't the case. I think I believe it was two months after diagnosis, crashed into dialysis, and that's when everything just kind of turned upside down. So that was really my life before that. I I had no idea anything within the medical world. I had no idea how to get out of it. I had no idea what even kidney failure was. I didn't know what kidneys did for me. I didn't know any of that. I just, yeah, so it just came all came crushing.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow. So our audience can't see you right now, but I'm looking at a strong specimen of a man. Wouldn't you tell me these things? It's hard to picture you like you described. Can you can you share how much you weighed at that time?

SPEAKER_04:

I was always a big guy, and at the time of diagnosis, I believe it was 315 pounds. And so I would say at my very heaviest, I was probably at about 340 pounds or so. Being obese all my adult life, I just thought it was normal. And now looking back, there were times where I would walk up maybe five flights of stairs and I had to stop because my breathing was so harsh. And I just accepted it. I was a smoker, you know. Maybe I smoked too much. Maybe that's why it's a good explanation of it. I tried to exercise here and there, got too tired. Okay, maybe it's because I'm overweight and I just need to train a little bit more, which I wasn't willing to do. And every time I I would work out, it would just be go as hard as I can to the point where I can't move for the next couple of days. And I hated it. It wasn't just the kidney failure, but it was the change in lifestyle that was so drastic that was um kind of devastating mentally and emotionally.

SPEAKER_02:

What went through your head when you realized that to live you were going to have to totally change all of that?

SPEAKER_04:

Well, when the doctors came in, uh Dr. Wesley Lisker, I still know him. He wasn't heartless, he was just telling me the truth, and I hated it. He said, uh, I told him to told him, hey, hurry up, fix me. I need to get back to work. And he says, son, you're not gonna go back to work. Your life is gonna be on this chair, it's gonna be a dialysis chair. The only other way is transplant. Unfortunately, you are too overweight uh to actually qualify for a transplant. And so this is your only way. Obviously, the natural question is, what do I do to get qualified? And it was, you need to lose at least a hundred pounds. And at that point, being completely overweight all my adult life and telling me to lose a hundred pounds was like telling me to lose a thousand pounds. It was impossible. It wasn't even a thought that I could do it. It wasn't even a thought of, okay, well, maybe I'll start exercising. You know, I actually at the time of diagnosis, um, gut was running rampant through my body. I couldn't move. I was in the hospital and in the nursing home for so long that all my muscles atrophied. I got discharged after a few weeks from the nursing home. I was left in a gurney. They would, uh, transport would come pick me up. So I couldn't even move and exercise, exercise. I couldn't walk. And so asking me to try to lose the weight, no, I wasn't going to do that. When they said you have to lose at least 100 pounds to get that chance of life, I accepted in the beginning. I accepted that I was gonna die. And so it was a lot of things. It was a lot of reflection on my life. It was, I was resentful, I was angry, I was thinking about all the times that I missed family gatherings. I would miss time with my parents, my brother, my sister, all because of what? Because I just wanted to go work and make money and thinking that that was that was the life, that was the thing that I was supposed to do. And I was resentful for all of that because work just moved on. I did not think that it was possible at all. Seeing my mom just in shambles. You know, I was the independent one. I left the house since I was 18 to go to college. I I was taking care of myself, and here I am back with her, and she's trying to nurse me back to health. I was fighting her on it, and she was just devastated. And with all of this, it was so traumatic. One day I just came home from dialysis and I had a choice. The transport left me. It was either the bed or the wheelchair that was downstairs. Uh, wherever they left me, that's where I would be. And I was sitting on that wheelchair and just contemplating, okay, I can't live life like this. I'm a burden to everybody in my family right now. And I even looked up what would happen if I stopped dialysis. And it said the toxins will build in your body. You would get increasingly tired and you would sleep, and one day you would sleep and you wouldn't wake up, and it would it would be kind of peaceful. And really thinking about everything, um just thinking about doing that wasn't fair to the people that I hurt or to the people that was hurting because of my diagnosis. And I felt that I hadn't really given it much of a thought to fight and what that would even look like. Because losing a hundred pounds again is like losing a thousand pounds. But something inside me just kept on saying, fight. Just do it. You're already dead. Just just fight, just choose life. That's that phrase right there, choose life, it was in my head. And after going back and forth in my mind for so long, thinking about my life, thinking about God, thinking about what I've done with my life, and I got up off the wheelchair and I took my very first steps. And the first step was the most painful step I've ever felt in my life. I forced it. Sheer will.

SPEAKER_03:

I took another step.

SPEAKER_04:

Ended up doing about a 10 feet walk. Just from the wheelchair to the front door and back. Very short. I don't know how long that lasted, you know, 20 seconds, a minute. I don't I don't know. But I do know that it was the most painful steps I have ever felt in my life. The most physical pain I've ever felt. For the very first time I felt free that moment. I just had physical pain. I had no emotional pain. I had I wasn't thinking about that. My life was on I was on dialysis. I wasn't thinking about any of the emotional trauma I just went through. I just had that physical pain.

SPEAKER_03:

And I loved it. It made me free.

SPEAKER_04:

And so I did that every single day. And just multiple times, just looking for searching for that pain every single day. And inevitably, the body got stronger and stronger. And it took longer for me to get that pain. 10 feet turned into 15 feet, 15 feet turned out to out the street, down the block, and you know, walking my first mile with my mom in the back, having a wheelchair just in case I couldn't make it, and just step after step after step until the point where months have gone by and I would spend all day doing this. And then it would got into running a little bit, you know, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds into you know, races at 5K's and 10K's and biking and doing all these. And every single one of those events, I was I was not looking to lose weight. I was not looking to qualify for that transplant. I was hunting and searching for that pain so it could I could stop thinking about everything else. And inevitably the weight started coming off.

SPEAKER_03:

And that was the source of how I turned that pain into something very, very powerful.

SPEAKER_04:

And it wasn't anything special. I didn't set out to do it, it just happened in that way to mask all the other pains. And I will probably tell you this as of today, I still am probably masking a lot of pain, doing a lot of the things that I'm doing. It it's become a coping mechanism. I like to use uh a hashtag or or or a term as outshine your pain, is do something that's greater than your pain so you can outshine it. And that's what I found in physical activity.

SPEAKER_02:

That's remarkable that you were able to find that after essentially resisting it for your whole life.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Yeah, it's it was it was life-changing and kind of led me into this whole realm where you know Amy's now, I think, I don't want to speak for her, but have done very something very similarly and very remarkably. And I've seen many people do it over and over again. I'm blessed to be where I'm at.

SPEAKER_02:

And Wilson, you're a young guy. How old were you?

SPEAKER_04:

I was 34 when I was diagnosed. I am now 43.

SPEAKER_02:

So we're gonna come back to you, Wilson. I want, I want more, I want more of that inspiration. But Amy, I know you and Wilson are buddies. So where did you fit into the beginning of the story when Wilson discovered fitness, essentially?

SPEAKER_01:

I came into his story in 2019 when he took over the gym that I was attending. I had been attending uh the gym for about two years, found this amazing group of women that we all supported each other, and they were the catalyst to me finding fitness that I loved and starting my weight loss journey. When I started, I was nearly 300 pounds. And so slowly but surely I was losing a little bit here and there. He took over in I think July of 2019, and the very first class at the 6 a.m. class, we were in a circle and he's like, introduce yourselves. So we all sort of introduced ourselves, and then he told us his story, very brief story, but basically, I'm in kidney failure, I need a kidney, and uh he won't see me on Tuesday, Thursdays, or Saturday mornings, but I'll be here the other days because those days he was on dialysis. And so we learned more about his story, and then he worked us out, and we were all dying for the lack of a better word, because we were all sweating and he really he and his the other trainer put on this amazing workout. He talked about being having a living kidney donor, and I didn't know anything about that. He had a little card that said he was be positive. I always be positive. Yes. And so he had that, and so it was in the back of my head. And one day I went to my mom's just to say hi and hang out, and she was asking about the new gym. And so I was telling her, and I told her about Wilson, and I said, He's be positive, he's looking for a kidney, and she said, You're be positive. And I was like, Oh, okay. So that night it's all I could think about. And I'm like, was he put in my life so that I could do something like this? It never entered my head. I didn't know about it. I just had the little pink sticker on my driver's license that when I died, you can take everything because I don't need it anymore. But I didn't know you could do it while you were still living for certain organs. And so I think it was either the next day or the day after I got the courage to ask him about it, and he sent me the information. And so I put all the information in at UC Davis and they're denied. And I was devastated, and it was because my BMI was still too high. And so I let him know that I wasn't qualified and I felt guilty. You were just like, it's cool. That's literally all I said, it's cool. And probably because he had so many people tell him that they couldn't do it, he probably just assumed he's not gonna do anything more. So it's good. And it was in the back of my head that I'm like, okay, I need to do this. This is there's there's a reason why I was put into this gym, but there was a reason why I met him. Something aligned everything. And so that was my goal. And so I just started doing sometimes four classes a day. It's wild. Yeah, I would do the five and six a.m. classes and then I do the five and six p.m. classes as often as I could, and just started working myself up and started losing the weight. We were training for a Spartan race two, which I was like, okay, bonus. And just as I was gonna reapply, COVID hit. Everything shut down. I contacted Davis and they're like, You qualify, but we're not doing anything right now. Any kind of elective surgeries are off the table. We'll contact you the day before his donor just said, Hey, I'm gonna do this for you. And he told us all this, and then I took him aside and I said, I just was told that I can start the process again. So it was the day before. Yeah, Amy called you, and I told you that night. So I did. I qualified. We both happened to be named Amy. They called me and they said, Hey, ready to go. Tell him you're gonna be his donor. And I was like, Me. I thought it was this Amy, and they're like, Oh. So there was like, so I was like, twist that is. Yeah. And so then they're like, okay. I said, but I still want to donate. I still, I, you know, at that point, we knew of a firefighter here in our town in Alameda, that I'm like, I'll do it for him. Met with him, great. They wouldn't accept me because I wasn't an O donor. And UC Davis didn't have a collection of O donors available for exchange plug exchange for exchange. And also, so when it Wilson ended up finding him another donor, and that worked out, but I still wanted to do it. I had this drive, and his donor is director of National Kidney Foundation. It's the executive director, executive director. I never remember. So she talked to him and said, Oh, I was at this event in Solana County. There's a sheriff there that needs a kidney. He comes in nonchalantly tells me it's a casual conversation.

SPEAKER_04:

Like, how's your day? Oh, yeah, I just got done with. I just talked to Amy. She's out in Solano County, talking to some sheriff department, some some sheriff out there needs a kidney, very just like conversationally.

SPEAKER_01:

And then I'm like, I'll do it. And so I put my name in for that. And they're like, Are you sure? And I'm like, Yeah. They're like, You don't know him. I'm like, I don't need to know him. He needs a kidney. I'm willing to give one. And so they're like, Okay, by this time, some of my tests had expired. So I had to go redo through the whole some of the process of the tests. Like the running on the treadmill, super easy. Running on the treadmill without a bra is hard. I don't wish that upon anybody. But I believe it was in March of 2023. They called and they said, okay, it's a go. Here are the dates that you can pick. And one of them was my birthday. And I said, that's it. And they're like, why that day? And I said, it's my birthday. And they're like, wait, you want to do this on your birthday? And I said, Yeah, that's the day my mother gave me life. And now I can help somebody else get back their life. She just gave me goosebumps. So May 9th, I got wheeled in and donated my kidney.

SPEAKER_04:

Just thinking about, you know, her wanting to give it and not being able to find like a recipient for recipient. There's patients everywhere. Why were we having such a difficult time?

SPEAKER_01:

And it's funny, after it was all set and good to go, I met so many people after that who needed kidneys and didn't have donors. And I was like, Where were you guys two years ago? Where were you a year ago? Wow. I had something to give. Yeah. But everything worked out the way it's supposed to work out. Yeah. And so yeah, on my birthday, I gave a little piece of me away.

SPEAKER_02:

So essentially your desire was to donate to Wilson. He found a different Amy. Yes. And you went on to do it anyway, which I just love it when donors do that. I think it's the most incredible thing when you commit to the gift versus the person that you're giving that you intended to give the gift to.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Wilson had made a comment one time that stuck with me about how everybody stepped up. Oh, we're gonna we're gonna test for you. Test, we're gonna test. And then, oh, I don't qualify, and they're all done. They don't continue the process because they don't qualify for him. They don't match him. So they're like, oh, well, I can't do it. And I was like, well, no, you still can do it. And I'm like, I didn't want to be that person. I didn't want to be like, and not that it's anything wrong, but for me, I knew deep in my heart that this is what I was supposed to do.

SPEAKER_02:

I want to back up to a part of your story where you said that you filled out the health questionnaire and immediately got denied.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. What did that feel like? I was denied because of my BMI. I was probably 10 points over where I needed to be. I needed to lose like another 45 pounds to qualify. And when I saw that, I felt like a failure. It didn't even dawn on me that they wouldn't take it because of weight. In my entire adult life, I never had a doctor say you need to lose weight, even though I was close to 300 pounds. Like I was the healthiest fat person. So it never dawned on me that I wouldn't qualify because of my weight. At first I felt like a failure, and then it switched something in me to be like, Well, no, you you want to lose weight anyway. You want to get healthier. Now this is more motivation.

SPEAKER_02:

And you lost like a lot of weight. I lost uh about a hundred pounds. So between the two of you, you lost like 200 240 pounds? Yeah. You lost two people between the two of you.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Wow. So you mentioned mission HQ, and that was the gym where kind of a lot of this inspiration sparked for both of you. So, Wilson, did you take over that gym while you were waiting for a kidney transplant?

SPEAKER_04:

Uh, yeah. So I was on dialysis, and uh, but I would see the owner walk in and out. She always looked distraught, she wasn't happy, this and that. And one day I just asked my trainer, what's going on? My trainer was telling me that, you know, she's a little underwater, gym's not making money, it was kind of run down and just it wasn't what it used to be. That previous November was Thanksgiving, I did a fitness challenge, and I wanted to start a nonprofit so we can help out other patients and this like this and that. What ended up happening is we did the fitness challenge, and I had this idea. I said, hey, one day when I get my transplant, when I retire, I'd want to have a place so I could have other patients come by and I can help them out. You know, I can help them lose weight just the way that I did it. And this opportunity came, and I just thought about that again. And I go, well, I just kind of I felt like I was just talking about this. So here's the opportunity. And everybody was telling me, What are you doing? You you have no experience, you you know, you not too long ago, you were 300 pounds, and you're gonna open up a gym, you have no idea, and you're on dialysis, you're gonna be out three days out of the week. How are you gonna even sustain this? But something in my gut told me that I had to do it, and so the owner ended up having to leave regardless, anyways. The landlord contacted me and said, You still want to take it over, you have two weeks. And so I said, Okay, I did it. I had a burning desire to seek out patients that were just like me. I wanted to make sure that I reached out to my fellow dialysis clinics, my fellow patients, and said, Hey, if you're going through all the stuff that I was going through, come over here and let's do this together. And so, as we took over the gym, we did that. And we live in an area where not everybody has resources to even afford a gym membership. Not, you know, most people are just trying to survive, and especially the patients that are out here. And so we knew that the patients that were coming here, it had to be complimentary. Cost should not be a barrier to live, to survive. It should not be a barrier whatsoever. And so the members were able to see what the mission was all about. They started seeing the patients, they started seeing people come in, and that was what is it, July of 2019. And we were just a very small space. And now we have probably about half an acre. We've got a couple outdoor classrooms. The gym's grown over to a little over a hundred members. We have our lawyers that have come in and out, which are patients, uh, kidney patients, stroke patients, cancer patients. We're looking at that group can be anywhere. But some of the classes are like 30, 40 people. We take in anybody that needs help. You don't even have to be chronically ill. If you're obese, if you're intimidated by all these regular big box gyms, we have a place here. And the design of it, the concept of it was always a place that I wanted to be at before. When I went to regular big box gym, I felt judged. I felt that if I was doing something wrong, people were looking at me. And so the environment that we wanted to build and which every single member participates in is we meet people where they're at. Everybody, you come in here, everybody knows who you are. There's no, what do you call it? Lifting bros? Is that what you call them? Oh, yeah, lifting bros. Like, like there's no slider weights or anything. Yeah, there's some big buff people in here. We actually train some professional athletes and they help out as well. And so some of these patients are able to see people they've seen on TV and people they've, you know, seen on online doing all these things. And they're like, wow, you know, we get to meet this celebrity over here that's you know, I I I've managed some boxers and things, and they help out with these word classes too. And so the environment here is just a place of growth and a place of healing and a place of hope. Who really runs the show here is Amy.

SPEAKER_02:

And so, so Amy and other members are leading these free classes.

SPEAKER_01:

No, actually, I started, he asked me to start helping out like two weeks before COVID hit. So I was came on as a contractor, employer, whatever employee, and started helping out and then COVID hit. And I still helped out with the gym, did all the things, and then decided to get my certification in personal training so that I could teach classes and do all that. We have other trainers as well. The members are just the members that come and work out, they will volunteer and help us out for for the warrior class. But I do the warrior class three times a week, teach it now.

SPEAKER_02:

And and the warriors are explain who the warriors are.

SPEAKER_01:

The warriors are our dialysis patients. The warriors are our stroke patients. We have a 92-year-old woman who had a stroke in January.

SPEAKER_04:

It's a it's such an inspiring group to see.

SPEAKER_01:

Some and some people we just have are just elderly, and we have this great little community.

SPEAKER_04:

It's a great environment to be around. And if we ever think that we have an excuse to not work out, I mean, we look at these warriors and and we say, there's no reason why we can't do some of the things because they're over here and they're working their tails off.

SPEAKER_02:

I really admire how you created a space for people that I think society forgets about or doesn't know how to serve. Or and Wilson, when you told your story, how easy it would have been to give up in that position. I mean, it's hard for me to fathom how somebody on dialysis, when they're told you need to lose 100 pounds, how do you lose 100 pounds if you don't have energy and you're on dialysis and a lot of people have a job? Where do you fit in burpees or, you know, you know, to your point, walking 10 feet? I mean, it's it seems like an impossible task to do when you don't have strength and energy.

SPEAKER_04:

I was saying before that every time I worked out, that every workout must be super hard. That's when I felt that I was work I was the most effective. And now when we meet these warriors, it's not about that. Maybe their 10 feet walk is a three feet walk. Maybe it's a two feet walk. Maybe it's just sitting down and standing up on the chair. Having this environment, we're letting them know that's okay. One of my biggest messages when I go out there and talk to patients is that don't look at what other people are doing. Look at what you can do.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. That's good advice for anybody who's for anybody. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

And it's just do what you can. And it's okay to stop and take a break. I remember on these walks that I would do, it got to the point where I would I'd wake up at six in the morning on days I wasn't on dialysis, and I would walk all the way until maybe nine o'clock at night. You know, I would come home to eat and I'd walk. And sometimes I had to call somebody, uh call Uber to come pick me up to take me home. Or sometimes I'd walk for maybe 45 minutes, I would sit down for an hour and then walk again for another 45 minutes or 30 minutes and sit down for maybe an hour, hour and a half, and then redo it again. And that's okay because eventually the consistency is way more important than doing something so difficult at any one moment. So when patients hear that, when people that are they have these goals to hear that is they feel reassured that this is possible. You know, it's not a matter of if, it's just a matter of when, but just keep moving forward. There's always hope. But to all the patients out there fighting, there's a whole community out there of folks fighting for you. So many non-directed donors that are just trying to make the world a better place. And as long as you know that that's out there, that there's all these people all across the country fighting for you, trying to give up their kidneys so that you can live your life. There is hope. That is the hope for the patients. And I and I just can't echo that enough.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, you guys inspire hope. I it's just so incredible what you guys do. And thank you. I wish that Mission HQ was in every city so that people had easy access to a resource.

SPEAKER_04:

One day.

SPEAKER_02:

That's a goal.

SPEAKER_04:

One day. One day.

SPEAKER_02:

So well, thank you guys so much for being my guest today. It's always a pleasure talking with you. And and I truly believe that you guys are going to get the message out there of how complete we can be as both a kidney recipient, as a donor, and just what's possible of our bodies physically. I take my hat off to you. You guys are incredible.

SPEAKER_04:

Thank you, Lori. Thank you for everything that you do for our community. Uh, you are entrenched in the world, and we are very, very lucky to have you um as an advocate.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, thanks. I'm looking forward to our fourth date, and maybe you'll even get me to run or haw my butt over a wall or something. Yes, who knows? Maybe, maybe I'll be recruited.

SPEAKER_01:

We'll find a Spartan near Chicago.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

All right. Take care, guys. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I hope this episode inspired you as much as Amy and Wilson continually inspire me to connect with them or to learn more about what they're up to. I invite you to check out my show notes. There will be lots of links in there about their work. Please follow Donor Diaries wherever it is that you're listening to this podcast right now. And if you like this episode, please tap that five-star rating. It really makes a big difference and it helps get stories like Wilson and Amy's to the ears of people who will benefit from hearing them the most. You can also find us on Facebook by searching the Donor Diaries podcast. This season of Donor Diaries is proudly sponsored by Giftworks, an organization dedicated to empowering organ recipients and living donors through education, advocacy, and support. By helping patients share their journeys and connect with donors, Giftworks ensures everyone feels supported throughout the transplant process. We're honored to partner with a team that's transforming lives one transplant at a time. To learn more, visit your giftworks.com. And remember, kindness matters and it's always a choice. This is Lori Lee signing off.

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Laurie Lee

Host