Long before Jessica Morris became known as Brandon McMillan’s wife, her name was already attached to something most people only talk about—and never actually do: donating a kidney to someone she didn’t even know. And it wasn’t a family member. It wasn’t a friend. It started with a desperate online plea from a stranger who’d run out of time.
In 2018, Jessica Morris was described in news coverage as a Southern California medical professional (reports variously refer to her as a medical technician / surgical nurse), living in Orange County.
But what made her stand out wasn’t her job title—it was a personal decision she made the previous December: instead of a typical New Year’s resolution, she decided she wanted to become a living donor. In a KTVU interview, she framed it bluntly: she wasn’t doing it for attention, she just felt certain she wanted to help someone.
The stranger who was running out of options
The man who would eventually receive her kidney was David Nicherie, an Oakland resident battling kidney failure after long-term health problems, including a chronic inflammatory bowel disease and an autoimmune disease that damaged his kidneys. By the time the story hit the news, he’d been on dialysis for years and was told a transplant could take an impossibly long time—so long that he’d even discussed hospice care with his family.
So David did what most patients are warned not to rely on: he posted a last-ditch Craigslist ad asking if anyone would consider becoming a donor.
The Craigslist ad, the scam responses… and the one email that was real
According to KTVU, David’s inbox filled up—but not with miracles. He received messages from people demanding money or pushing other conditions. Then he got an email from Jessica Morris—direct, serious, and “no strings attached.” Even then, David admitted he was skeptical at first because he’d already been burned by scammers.
Jessica explained that she’d been looking into kidney donation for a long time. When David’s post popped up (KTVU says it appeared on her Facebook feed), she saw it as the kind of situation she’d been waiting for—someone who clearly needed help now.
The “signs” that made the story even wilder
When they started talking, the story got even more surreal: CBS Bay Area reported they discovered they had surprising connections—like being born at the same hospital in Orange County—and they shared enough in common that the whole thing felt oddly “meant to be.” Doctors also determined she was a perfect match.
And then came the part where most people would panic and back out.
The tests, the evaluations, and the day she went through with it
KTVU reported that living donation wasn’t a quick yes-and-go situation. Jessica went through months of preparation—extensive lab work, X-rays, and even a psychiatric evaluation—before surgeons at UCSF removed her left kidney and transplanted it into David.
CBS Bay Area later confirmed the transplant at UCSF’s Parnassus campus was successful and that David’s prognosis looked very good.
The recovery that shocked people, too
One of the reasons Jessica’s story went viral is that she didn’t just survive the surgery—she bounced back fast.
CBS reported that five days after the donation, she felt well enough to visit Alcatraz with her father for Father’s Day.
And in a 2019 follow-up, KTVU shared that she stayed extremely active after donating—saying she went backpacking just three weeks after surgery and even swam with sharks six weeks later. (Yes, really.)
“Paying it forward”: the website they launched after the transplant
This wasn’t just a one-time headline. KTVU’s 2019 update said Jessica and David made a promise before surgery: they wanted to help other people find living donors too.
That promise turned into a website—findakidneydonor.com—meant to connect donors and recipients and share information about the process.
Brandon McMillan is best known as the Emmy-winning trainer and TV personality behind Lucky Dog—but his wife’s “hero headline” story comes from a totally separate world.
What is clear from their own public posts is that Jessica’s “living donor” identity stayed close to her even after she stepped into Brandon’s world. Her Instagram bio explicitly references being a living kidney donor.
How Jessica and Brandon met
Some parts of their relationship story are public—but not every detail is spelled out in interviews.
What we can verify is that Jessica herself has described the early dynamic like this: in a May 2022 Instagram post, she wrote that when she first met Brandon, he warned her there would always be “another woman” in his life—clearly a cheeky nod to the dogs and the work that come with being “Animal Brandon.”
Brandon has posted an anniversary message saying he’d been “terrified of marriage” until he met Jessica, thanking her for “the best year” of his life—pointing to a wedding/anniversary timeframe that aligns with late 2022 into 2023.
Jessica also posted wedding-related content around that period (including a reel dated Sept. 25, 2022 and other wedding-day-style posts visible in search results), which supports that they married in the late September / early October 2022 window—though an exact wedding date isn’t consistently stated in the accessible text snippets.
Do Brandon and Jessica have kids?
Yes—public posts indicate they have a son.
Brandon announced: “Welcome to the world ‘Parrish Daniel McMillan.’” That baby name appears in both Instagram and Facebook snippets tied to Brandon’s accounts.
And by Mother’s Day 2025, Brandon posted about Jessica as a mom—signaling they were firmly in the “new parents” stage by then.
Beyond that, I can’t confirm any additional children from solid, public reporting or accessible primary posts—so I wouldn’t add “more kids” unless you have a source you want me to verify.
