Jey and JJ met while working out at a gym in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2017. Neither imagined that their weightlifting routine would end up becoming a matter of life or death.
Jey had been dealing with high blood pressure since 2015, a silent problem that slowly destroyed his kidneys year after year. In 2021, COVID-19 caused him to develop sepsis, and his kidneys completely failed. He needed dialysis or a transplant before the end of the year. He never asked JJ for help. He didn’t have to: JJ was the first and only person to offer to donate, and it turned out that he was a match.
On December 7, 2021, Jey received a kidney transplant. Before the surgery, while Jey spent entire weeks connected to dialysis in the early hours of the morning, JJ would sit beside him for four hours at a time with coffee and snacks, refusing to leave him alone. Today, the two are best men at each other’s weddings, and their wives are pregnant, with only three weeks separating their due dates.
Would you do this for your best friend?