Hi, you two.
Hello.
Hi, how are you?
Good now.
All right, so, Erin, start at the beginning.
When did you find out you needed a kidney transplant?
So I've had kidney disease pretty much my whole life,
but it wasn't until a month after I got married that I
went into kidney failure.
And from there it was just a downward spiral of things.
I needed to go on dialysis.
I needed a transplant.
So my whole world got put upside down.
And that was at-- you were 24 years old, right?
I was 24 years old, yes.
Wow, that is a bad time for--
I mean, it's so horrible anyway, but at 24 years old,
that's terrible.
Absolutely, and even-- I'm 28 now, and talking about it
still makes me emotional.
You just-- you never think you're
going to go through something like that.
Yeah, of course.
Breanna, you heard about her story how?
I was just at my parents' house scrolling through Facebook,
and I came across this post that Erin's husband had shared.
I didn't know who they were, but I instantly
felt this overwhelming feeling in my heart
that I was this person's perfect match.
I didn't even know what living donation was at the time,
but reading the story, I read more.
And I-- it was just--
I can't even explain the feeling that came over my heart.
But I called my mom, and I was like, "Do you
know what blood type I am?"
And when she told me I was O positive,
and I knew Erin was O positive too, I just--
there are-- there's no words to describe that to them.
I just-- I was hysterical.
I can't even explain it.
It was crazy.
I knew I was a match.
The fact that you didn't even know organ donation
was something, and then you are just compelled to do it.
And then first of all, you were denied by the first hospital,
right?
A hospital said "No, you can't do this,"
even though you were a match.
Yeah, I tested for six months at the first hospital,
and I got to the step right before surgery.
And they thought I had high blood pressure.
Every time I would go into the hospital for testing--
there's a lot of needles, and I hate needles.
And I would get anxious and my blood pressure
would obviously go up.
So yeah, I got turned down, but then I
had another opportunity at a second hospital.
And on that first day, they sent me
home with a 24-hour blood pressure
monitor and proved that I didn't have high blood pressure.
And I was Erin's perfect match.
And then how did you two meet after that?
So I ended up seeing a video log that she
made of her journey going through getting tested.
And when I saw it, I just bawled my eyes for hours.
I couldn't believe that a stranger
wanted to do this for me.
It's one thing if a family member wants
to get tested for you, but someone
that doesn't know anything about you that
feels compelled to want to save your life is just--
she's a miracle.
Yeah, she is.
That's-- it's incredible that you did that.
And how are you doing out of the surgery now?
Amazing.
We-- I have nothing wrong with me.
I just had a recent checkup.
All my numbers were good.
I'm living the perfect, healthy life I always wanted,
because of Breanna.
[INAUDIBLE]
Hearing her and seeing her living a healthy life,
it's like a gift that just keeps on giving to me
and reminds me why I did it.
But I'm doing amazing as well.
If I didn't have a tiny, little scar on my stomach,
you would never even know that I donated my kidney.
That's so cool.
You know, Sarah Hyland is a friend of mine,
and she had the same thing.
You know that, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
She went through the whole thing.
She was actually on the show earlier.
She left though.
She-- is she gone?
She's not gone.
Oh, well then we should--
Sarah, are you still here?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Welcome back.
You guys.
That's fantastic.
Not only was she still here just waiting to be called back out.
All right, we have to take a break.
And then we'll come back, and we'll chat with Sarah.
We'll be back.
Sarah, you had-- right, you two?
Yes, I've had two kidney transplants.
And I was 21 for my first and then 26 for my second,
which I believe we got our--
your first, my second the same year in 2017.
Correct, yeah.
So we're both on our three-year anniversary.
Yes.
And yeah.
How do you feel when you hear stories like this?
It's so, so beautiful.
Altruistic donors are just the most amazing people
on the entire planet, I think.
Your story and the fact that you guys are the best friends now--
this whole thing that's brought you together,
it's just so, so, so beautiful.
And thank you so much for being such an amazing human being
and helping Erin out.
There are so many of us that are on dialysis
and on a transplant, on a waiting list,
and hundreds of thousands of people on waiting lists.
So thank you so much just for being so kind.
And you started-- what's also cool is because of this, they
started an organization to raise awareness for organ donation.
Yeah, so it's called Team Be More,
and we share other people's stories
I found Erin through social media.
So we try to help other people find their potential living
donor as well.
And the word "Be More" came from that video log that I kept.
And I really wanted to tell people
that if you can't be more by giving an organ
to just be more in this life.
Be more kind.
Be more loving, and to just help people.
And we really just love Be More so much, because it really
gets the word out there about how important it
is to be an organ donor and just spreading stories.
Because you never know who it's going to reach.
Absolutely.
And I don't know if you know this,
but I have friends at Shutterfly.
And I told them about Be More, and Shutterfly
wants to help you create memories with this check.
It's a check for $10,000.
[NO SPEECH]
You know, Ellen, that's so weird, because I also
have friends at Shutterfly.
And they gave me a check for $10,000 to give you guys.
Oh wow.
So that's $20,000.
$20,000-- math, guys.
Go to our website--
Thank you so much.
--to learn more about how you can help save a life.
We'll be right back.
Thank you so much, you two.
Hi, I'm Andy.
Ellen asked me to remind you to subscribe to her channel,
so you can see more awesome videos, like videos
of me getting scared or saying embarrassing things,
like ball peen hammer, and also some videos
of Ellen and other celebrities if you're
into that sort of thing.
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[MUSIC PLAYING]
God!
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