A PAIR IN PROGRESS — a living donor transplant Story

A few years ago, my lovely wife Nikki’s health began depleting due to a rare liver disease, primary sclerosing cholangitis. This illness took away her energy, a lot of her normal daily activities, & her health. To make a long story short, she eventually needed a liver transplant to save her life. As luck would have it, we discovered the liver regenerates [crazy right!?!] thus making a living donor transplant possible. So the hunt began for a donor both living & deceased.

Sure enough, Nikki eventually found a donor. Not only was this amazing, but where she found a donor was just as amazing. Taylor, the soon to be living liver donor, worked alongside Nikki teaching yoga. I could not believe it whenever she told me the incredible news. It seemed so surreal.

Nikki and Taylor’s story was so unique they wanted to inspire others to volunteer for altruistic organ donation. They started a GoFundMe and a social media blog called A Pair in Progress to share their journey and to document the donor process from beginning to end. As a good husband, I wanted to use my skill-set to help raise awareness of their blog, their ordeal, and organ donation. We created a variety of shirts promoting their blog which we sold via my website. 100% of the proceeds were donated to the families to help throughout the post operation period.

Once all the preoperative details were worked out & Taylor was a confirmed donor match, the ladies were admitted to the transplant ward and the rest is history. The operation was a success and both are still in great health to this day.

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Additional Credits: Printer: Terminus Tees

Sometimes the answers are right in front of us without us even knowing the question. The love of yoga brought these two young women together but unconditional love is what now binds them together for the rest of their lives. Taylor has literally given Nikki the gift of life. Taylor & her family are now our family. Our family is now Taylor’s family.

Terminus Tees, the local t-shirt printer, knew how urgent the order was & they killed it! The quality of print & materials were perfect not to mention timely. We did two initial runs of aPIP racerback tank tops and t-shirts since they were selling well & additional sizes were in high demand. The ladies loved the high quality racerback style tank tops since those are the most optimal for their yoga instruction & training.

To add to the fundraising attire, we created “The Celebrator” raglan, Nikki’s personal favorite style for post yoga activities. The variant style was a smaller run than the original shirts but were also a higher quality of material with a unique color way that complimented the original racerback tank tops & t-shirts.

Through social media Nikki & Taylor were able to document their experience to share with other potential transplant donors & recipients, spread the word about altruistic organ donation, and promote the fundraising apparel. As soon as the shirts shipped the ladies began to be tagged all over the web. By sharing their story & experience they are hoping to inspire others to consider organ donation for those in need of live-saving surgery.