Making a connection on the dating app Tinder can lead to anything from a casual hookup to a lifetime commitment. For one lucky couple, a fateful swipe led not only to true love but to a second chance at a happy, healthy life together.
Reid Alexander was diagnosed with the genetic kidney disease Alport syndrome at age 17. By the time he graduated college, his symptoms had progressed to the point that his kidneys were only functioning at 20% capacity.
Alexander began dialysis and was put on the transplant list, however, determined not to let the illness rule his life, the Kokomo, Indiana native went forward with plans to move from his home state to Denver, Colorado.
He’d only been resettled for a little while when he and Rafael Dìaz—the man who would eventually become both his future husband and kidney donor—met via Tinder.
“We really just hit it off,” Alexander told PEOPLE. “And we were together every day ever since. It felt like we knew each other for a really long time. And it still feels like that to us.”
Alexander was upfront with Dìaz about his medical prognosis. His new Prince Charming took the news in his stride. Already a registered organ donor, Dìaz began investigating what it would take to learn if he and Alexander were a donor match as well as a love match.
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Their engagement announcement was followed a few months later by news that Dìaz was indeed a viable donor for Alexander’s kidney transplant. Rather than a lavish wedding ceremony, the couple opted to pool their resources to finance the lifesaving surgical procedure.
Alexander and Dìaz got hitched in a small ceremony this past April; the transplant went off without a hitch in June. Both men are extremely grateful not only to have found one another but to have participated in what amounts to something of a real-life miracle.
“Expect the unexpected,” Alexander told PEOPLE. “I never would’ve thought that I would move across the country and meet the love of my life, and then the love of my life would also be a perfect match, and I would get a kidney. [I] never would’ve expected that.”
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