How I Decided to Donate my Kidney to the Basketball Star

My pre-op room at the University of Washington Medical Center (UWMC) had quieted from the earlier hustle and bustle. Veins were found and poked, sensors stuck in place. The surgical team had introduced themselves, closing the curtain behind them each time on the way out, all having asked the same routine questions.

All that remained now were occasional beeps and a hum from a blanket inflated with circulating, warming air. My wife sat quietly at the foot of the bed. I was sitting up and focusing on my breathing. I was suddenly overtaken by an immense calm and the sense of traveling backward in a snap over the past nine months.

My wife recognized something in my eyes. She clasped my hand and asked if I was OK. Tears welled up in my eyes as I came back to the present.

“Yes, it’s just been a long journey to get here,” I said.

At that moment, the anesthesiologist pulled back the curtain and asked If I was ready to head to the operating room.

I was ready.

Flash back to May 3, 2024. Just across the street at Husky Stadium, I sat at the annual University of Washington (UW) spring football game. A video began playing on the big screen showing football and basketball highlights from former UW athlete and 11-year NBA veteran Nate Robinson. Nate narrated the video, detailing his long battle with chronic kidney disease, eventual kidney failure, and current dialysis treatment keeping him alive. Lastly, Nate asked for help. He was in need of a donor, specifically with blood type A positive – my blood type. A QR code led to a donor registry page.

A realization came over me in that moment. It was not unlike the feeling I had nine months later in pre-op. As much as I would attempt to temper the thought over the ensuing months of phone and video calls, tests, and appointments, I knew I would donate a kidney to Nate Robinson.

Even considering the emotional, gut feeling I had, It still seems like an absurd idea to jump into headfirst. But there was another reason the idea of kidney donation resonated with me. My wife donated a kidney to a family acquaintance in 2011. My wife and her recipient are thriving to this day. We have four daughters, two born following the donation. We consider her recipient part of our family – she and her husband welcomed their first child this past year – and we are involved in each others’  lives.

My wife donated her kidney at UWMC just as I would later do. I walked alongside her through the evaluation process, which is thorough. No stone is left unturned in evaluating the health and compatibility of the donor; physically, psychologically and socially. And the donor is given every opportunity to bow out gracefully, even up to the moment of the procedure.

UWMC is a pioneer in kidney transplantation in our region. The first kidney transplant in the Pacific Northwest was performed there in 1968. The hospital performed its first kidney transplant with a living donor unrelated to the recipient in 1994. They have performed thousands of transplants and now exceed 200 annually.

UWMC surpasses the national success rates for kidney transplantation, both immediately following and for the long-term survival of the recipient and the transplanted kidney. A kidney from a living donor functions better than from a deceased donor, and avoids the three- to five-year wait for a cadaver kidney.

Kidney donation is not associated with shorter life expectancy. While the donor’s kidney function decreases, the remaining kidney increases its function over time to compensate.

Following the initial questionnaire and some tests I was able to complete locally near my home in Bremerton, I visited UWMC for more thorough screening in August of 2024. It is interesting to be a healthy “patient” – as healthy as a kidney donor, my wife likes to say – among some very sick patients, including those waiting for kidney, liver, heart, and lung transplants. But there is also hope, as many of the patients have received their life-saving organs, and are returning for post-op appointments.

Nate was one of those patients I saw. I figured we would cross paths at some point prior to the donation if I were to be cleared. I remained anonymous to him up through the surgery. Nate, I learned later, was eager to meet and share his gratitude. I felt it best to wait until after a successful surgery. Despite the mask he was wearing this day, I was able to spot him immediately, as we both waited for a blood draw.

As a highly-sought-after athletic recruit out of Seattle’s Rainier Beach High School, two-way star in both football and basketball at UW, and first-round pick in the 2005 NBA Draft, where he became the first three-time slam dunk champion – standing 5’9”, no less – Nate is well recognized in Seattle.

As a long-time UW fan, I had followed Nate over his career. Most memorable to me, though he only played one-year of football as a true freshman at UW, was an interception in an Apple Cup played in Pullman over a 6’ 6” WSU receiver to ensure overtime and an eventual victory. I witnessed Nate play in Husky Stadium that year from my dad’s seats – a UW alumni and season ticket holder since the 1970s.

By Thanksgiving of 2024, I was cleared as a match and donor for Nate. In December, I’d agreed to a donation date of February. 7, 2025. Nate was told at Christmastime of the gift he was receiving.

I arrived at UWMC in the early hours of the surgery date and sat to wait with my wife for the lab to open for one last blood draw. Nate once again walked in, oblivious to my identity or purpose there, he with some family who would later that day claim me and my family as their own.

Nate calls me his brother now. The feeling is mutual. He has introduced me to his family, friends and fans, who have all expressed their gratitude and love in ways I could have never imagined.

I’m healthy and fully recovered – basically full speed at about eight weeks. Nate is no longer tethered to a dialysis machine three days a week. We succeeded in that goal, and seeing Nate return to so much of what he is known and admired for is an ongoing gift to me.

It is difficult to emerge from events like these without some shift in perspective. Perhaps it is just an attempt at making sense of it. Despite some obvious differences, Nate and I are not all that unalike. We love our kids, share an interest in sports, and try to make each other laugh. Most significantly, neither one of us could have navigated this process alone. Community is vital – family, friends, faith, associations, workplaces – and this is coming from a proud introvert.

I’ve also learned that we need to be comfortable asking for help. People in our communities are ready to answer that call.