Brian Gilliam

Living Kidney Donor

Nordstrom, Sales Associate

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 we were thinking he would be fine. I was wrong. I was slowly watching him deteriorate and it was on my mind daily. So my wife and I started to seriously talk about it. Over a couple months of discussion, we decided to start researching the process. It was strange coincidence that when we decided to do this, the 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 that her transplant surgeon was my dad’s transplant surgeon. It was like when you buy a new car and all of a sudden you see the same car everywhere, my signs were everywhere! So I told my dad (super excited) and we contacted UCLA. The process started.

We matched and I was strangely and completely healthy.  I was prepared to go into the exchange program if we did not match. That program was very inspiring to me. My process was smooth. My dad had a few hurdles to get past. The transplant took place five months later. I was cleared to go back to work nine days later. My dad is doing great, but is having trouble with anemia that his dedicated doctors 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 through this transplant program.

Since, I have been working to raise awareness for kidney disease and transplantation. As a member of The Circle of CORE advocacy and support group, I am available to anyone who needs someone to talk to who has been there.