Healthy Living

Swiping Right: How One Woman Found Love and a Kidney on Tinder

Swiping Right: How One Woman Found Love

What are the odds of finding someone willing to give an organ away to someone they have met online?

Social networks have already earned a place in day to day life. Being able to contact people online, meet and even have long-term friendships with someone that can be thousands of kilometers away ,or even just a couple of blocks, used to be very impressive before it became a part of anyone’s life. Nevertheless, it has also unveiled how difficult it is for people to connect with others.

Keeping in mind that technology has allowed people to establish relationships, the next step was pretty obvious for technology: helping people date and find their love interests online. Although Facebook and other social networks had already helped people relate to others romantically, it was still not the main objective of this social network.

Tinder came as a revolutionary option in 2012, allowing users to look for someone to go out with. Although it was not the first dating app, it had a much simpler premise where people could easily “like” or “unlike” pictures and brief descriptions of other people. A simple and pretty straight-forward method.

However, as Tinder proved to be very helpful for people looking for a partner and has been the initial place of many surprising love stories, this one is very peculiar. The story of Alana, a girl who found love and something else during her time in Tinder. She not only found love, but also a kidney.

Finding Love and a Kidney on Tinder

Alana had already used Tinder, but was not very faithful about it as time progressed. The app helped her meet someone who she engaged in a relationship with, but it did not last long. She also received a lot of messages from couples that were interested in having her included in their sexual activities.

It was not until Labor Day of 2015 when Alana “liked” Lori by swiping right, and a couple of minutes later they matched and started texting each other. They then started planning to go on a date, but ended up meeting each other before at a special event that took place in their city. There, they danced all night and fell over heels with one another.

During that first date, Alana told Lori she was entering a dialysis process and how much that meant for her future. Truth is, when Alana was 12 years old when she was diagnosed with autoimmune disease called lupus, causing her body to attack its own cells, organs, and even her skin. The first area that it affected was her kidneys, and doctors had told her she would need dialysis treatment.

Three or four dates after, Lori asked if she could be tested to determine if she was a possible donor match. It was very surprising for her that someone who did not know her long would offer to get tested. Especially since she had long-time friends that had not offered themselves as possible donors.

Alana started dialysis at home, for ten hours every night since her kidneys had already started failing alarmingly. Dialysis did well to Alana and she was able to return to college and had a normal life.

After she had met Alana, Lori underwent physical tests and body scans to make sure she was donor match. However, she did not tell anything to Alana. Once she received the results saying she was eligible to donate one of her kidneys, she prepared a surprise for Alana.

An Unexpected and Rewarding Gift

Lori prepared a box full of things Alana liked, but at the bottom of the box she found something she was not expecting at all, a poster with the same pop-up they saw when they matched on Tinder. However, it instead said, “You have a match! Accept or keep waiting?”

It was very surprising how she went from having a condition that did not let her date properly to having someone who barely knew her offering her kidney and even, a new start. Alana recalls how hard it was to date because of her condition, since many people did not feel capable of handling a relationship with someone with lupus.

They decided to tell their story on the internet and it became very famous quickly. And then it happened. A New York-based production company contacted them to see if they were interested having their story filmed.

The Documentary

In order to inspire others with their story, they accepted to film a documentary about lupus and organ donation. The main goal of this film was to raise awareness of the existence of this condition.

The filming company started filming their day to day lives, tests, appointments with doctors, the surgery, and small interviews. Alana highlights that although it was a bit overwhelming, they developed a very fun and familiar relationship with the production crew. The film was named Bean, which honors the nickname Lori and Alana gave to the kidney transplanted 

Bean was selected by a few film festivals around the country and overseas, being seen by man to raise more awareness for lupus. It was the first time Alana and Lori went to a film festival and the way the audience received the film was more than rewarding. One scene after the other, the audience watched Alana and Lori's journey, reflecting on emotional and funny moments of their relationship. The audience loved watching their story unfold, which just shows the potential this documentary has in inspiring many others. 

Their life-changing experience has been screened in many different film festivals and it will have a television premiere on November 18 at 10 p.m. EST-time on “Fuse”

This has been a remarkable experience Lori and Alana did not expect to live when they joined Tinder to look for possible partners. Not only did they find each other, they now share an organ as well.