When Karen Aguayo, a freshman from Grand Canyon University, headed to her local Costco in Arizona with a group of friends, she hadn’t expected to see a man whose shirt had words printed on them that would make her have to speak to him about them.
The man was 67-year-old Robert Duran, and he was using a motorized shopping cart.
He had long become accustomed to the staring that his shirt often caused, and his wife was also well aware of the attention they received.
But for Duran, this shirt was his only hope.
The shirt was plain black with large, white letters on them that read “Kidney donor needed”, alongside his blood type and instructions to ask him how to do so.
Karen and her friends had to approach him to ask about it, and they were told the heartbreaking truth.
Duran had been searching for a kidney donor for four years, and he had been diagnosed with stage five kidney failure.
He undergoes dialysis thrice weekly, for four hours each time, and his wife is anxiously waiting by the phone constantly for the phone call that could say his life has been saved.
Karen decided to take a picture of Duran and his shirt and posted it to Twitter, asking those who could donate and wanted to do so to message her for further details.
Over 260,000 people have retweeted it. As of now, there are several possible donors for Duran, but the wait is not fully over yet.
Still, things are looking up, and Duran is glad that his shirt has finally paid off.
