06/05/2026
I’m always amazed by how life works. I met Gibran Vigil (middle) and his brother Nathan (right) on the Baxter project in 2014. When I was laid off in the early days of the pandemic, Gibran reached out to encourage me to apply to the company he worked for and we got to work together again for a while.
Late last year Gibran posted that he needed a kidney transplant from an O blood type. As a fellow O blood type I know that Os have to wait the longest on the transplant list. We can donate to anyone, but can only receive from other Os.
Gibran is an awesome human being. He was always super kind and helpful (and frank when I needed him to be) and low key hilarious. He’s the kind of guy whose wife is his best friend. He has a beautiful family. I knew immediately that I wanted to become a living donor for him.
After living through a few of the hardest years I’ve ever imagined and coming out on the other side of disaster after disaster, the thought of being a living donor gave me hope. A purpose. It gave me a reason to stop looking backwards and an opportunity to put the good I wanted to see out into the world. Imagine the high of getting to make such a positive impact on not only an awesome individual, but on his entire family- parents, spouse, kids, grandkids, aunts, cousins, and siblings. I would have given anything for someone to be able to help my dad. And the thought of being able to help someone else’s dad in such a meaningful way filled me with such joy.
Crumb and I traveled to Phoenix this week where Gibran and his family live to do the final testing before moving forward with surgery. Last night, we got to share a delicious meal made by Gibran’s mom and meet his extended family. It was absolutely delightful and it was immediately clear as to why Gibran is an amazing human.
Sadly, today the transplant team determined I was not able to move forward as a kidney donor.
We both feel crushed by this news, but we’ve decided this isn’t the end of the story.
With Gibran’s permission, I’m coming to social media with the hope that our stories inspire someone out there looking for purpose and meaning (and hopefully an O bloodtype) to consider becoming a living kidney donor. Honestly, is there a better legacy than literally giving a part of yourself to another (awesome) human being to help them heal? Talk about filling the karma bank.
If you’ve read this far, please like or share this post and together let’s find Gibran another donor!
