R.J. Williams sips a bottle of water as he shares his plans with his friends. He’s summitted eight of the 58 Colorado peaks above 14,000 feet and plans to knock out another five by the time you read this. Still, it took him awhile to get back in tip-top shape.
His friends understand because they’ve worked together so long.
Don Korn is the director of the Portfolio Management Group. Scott Nailen and Williams are Institutional Portfolio managers at Regions Bank’s Alabama headquarters. It’s rewarding but stressful work.
But what connects them goes even further. It’s the gift of life.
Just five weeks before we gathered them together to hear their story, Williams donated a kidney to Nailen’s son, Will. While Will recovered, aiming at a return to college, Williams had to wait on the go-ahead from doctors to resume his rock-climbing routine at the gym, which would come in the weeks that followed.
I feel I have to live up to what Will and the Nailens have done. As Winston Churchill said, ‘You make a living not by what you get but you make a life by what you give.’ R.J. Williams, Institutional Portfolio manager at Regions Bank’s Alabama headquarters
Ask Williams how he’s feeling, and he smiles. Knowing R.J. Williams, that alone speaks volumes.
“I feel good,” he offered. “I feel a sense of fulfillment. I feel I have to live up to what Will and the Nailens have done. As Winston Churchill said, ‘You make a living not by what you get but you make a life by what you give.’ I’ve never forgotten that.”
Those words resonate now like never before, thanks to a journey that came out of nowhere and is far from over.
A Parent’s Intuition
It began with a hamstring injury that wouldn’t heal.
Will was a seventh-grade wrestler at Pizitz Middle School, fresh off a successful season placing third at Metro South and poised for a move to the varsity team next year. But a nagging hamstring injury was delaying his post-season training. After a doctor’s visit and several weeks of inactivity failed to produce any relief for Will, Scott began to question the initial diagnosis and pushed for better answers.
“I was at (older son) Nate’s JV baseball game,” Scott said. Scott’s wife, “Meg had taken Will to get an MRI. Then I got the call. It was the ‘c’ word no parent ever wants to hear, described as an aggressive mass on his left iliac wing.”A subsequent biopsy confirmed the diagnosis – Osteosarcoma of the left hip.
Soon after, Will endured three months of chemotherapy treatment at Children’s of Alabama then headed to Houston’s M.D. Anderson for hemipelvectomy surgery to remove the tumor, where the surgeon, Dr. Valera Lewis, was considered the best in her field. “Dr. Lewis always spoke with confidence and authority, which was reassuring. She explained that the only percentages that matter when fighting cancer are 0 percent or 100 percent,” Scott shared. “Will is either going to survive this or not, his battle is unique to him, which gave us perspective and hope.”
Will’s recovery would not have been possible without the critical role Alex played, both mentally and physically. Alex was truly a Godsend. Scott Nailen, nstitutional Portfolio manager at Regions Bank’s Alabama headquarters
The 12-hour surgery to remove the cancerous tumor and left hip was rough enough, but Will had to learn to walk again after months of rigorous rehab in Texas with his Physical Therapist, Alex, by his side. “Will’s recovery would not have been possible without the critical role Alex played, both mentally and physically,” Scott explained. “Alex was truly a Godsend.”
Father and son rode four wheelers and side-by-sides, and went hunting, when Will was up to it. This helped Will cope with being away from his family and friends back home
Back in Birmingham, his Wealth Management team kept close tabs.
“That’s why I love working at Regions, and why I love my team,” Scott said. “They were there to lift me up during a difficult time. Plus, we have exceptional healthcare benefits at Regions, something you never realize until you need them.”
‘A Scary Time’
By December, Will was ringing the bell, signifying he’d won the battle, and returned home just in time for Christmas.
But Scott was thinking long term.
“Throughout this, there were red flags,” he said. “Started with family history. My mother passed away from breast cancer when she was 30 and I was only 18 months old.”
On a trip to visit family in Mississippi around Thanksgiving of 2018, Will woke up in the middle of the night with terrible pain in his leg. As soon as they got back to Birmingham, a doctor visit confirmed their worst fears.
An osteosarcoma recurrence in his L-5 vertebrae.
Will returned to Houston and underwent spinal laminectomy surgery in January of 2019, for the extensive removal of the tumor and the insertion of two rods to stabilize his spine.
In March, as Will continued his treatments, another blow: this time for Scott. A full-body MRI, his first ever prompted by family history, revealed a small lesion in Scott’s left lung. A subsequent biopsy led to a lung cancer diagnosis. One month later, he was undergoing surgery, which thankfully was all that was needed given the early detection.
But Scott’s chief concern remained focused on the health of his youngest son. And by June 2019, Will was ringing the bell – for a second time.
“This was a scary time for us,” Scott said. It would get scarier.
In December 2020, the cancer in Scott’s lung returned. Early detection again proved a blessing, but this time, a new and different form of treatment would be prescribed – an oral immunotherapy taken daily indefinitely to prevent and/or slow the growth. It has been effective thus far, as there have only been slight changes since July 2022.
By then, Will had moved on to Auburn University as a student. In December of 2022, Will was cramming for his first finals as a freshman when he called home on Friday saying he’d gotten a stomach bug and spent the night vomiting. The next morning, Scott was running a 25k at Oak Mountain State Park when Meg’s intuition convinced her things were more serious. “She met me at the finish line and said, ‘we are going to Auburn. We’ve got to go check on Will.’”
Will was in extremely bad shape when they arrived at the ER on campus. He needed to be admitted to the hospital immediately given that both his liver and kidney functions were failing. Meg insisted on transport to UAB two hours away.
“The liver miraculously recovered but his kidneys were permanently damaged, only functioning at around 10 percent,” Scott said. “We were told, given his age, his kidneys would be somewhat resilient, but eventually he would need a transplant or dialysis.”
Will made it a year before he had to start peritoneal dialysis while at Auburn. That bought him time, but the clock was ticking.
‘Why Wouldn’t I?’
Will made it through another semester of school thanks to a portable dialysis machine he used at night. But doctors wouldn’t approve him for a transplant until he was cancer free for five years. In June of 2024, Will crossed that threshold and the search for a donor began.
Everyone in the family was screened for a match. When that was unsuccessful, news of Will’s need for a new kidney began spreading throughout their network of friends and church members.
There were other options, including a cadaver organ, but that waiting list was six years. For the best outcome, doctors needed a perfectly matched, living donor – one compatible in both blood and tissue.
“I think we were on every prayer list of friends across the nation,” Scott said. “Our faith is very important to us and a constant source of strength. I felt the Lord would provide a way, we just had to be patient.”
Scott has always been appreciative of people asking about Will. Even his clients continue to ask. And it was that question that led friends and family to volunteer for screening. “We never actually had to ask anyone, they just volunteered,” Scott said.
As friends and extended family were screened, but didn’t match, Korn’s team of investment bankers at Regions began to get concerned.
“One day, I asked Scott how Will was doing, and he told me they’d been unsuccessful thus far,” Williams said.
So, Williams volunteered to be screened. Low and behold, he proved a perfect match.
This is an amazing family and an amazing kid with his entire life ahead of him. R.J. Williams
“I’ve known Will since he was 13,” Williams said. “When they said I was a match, I couldn’t imagine not going through with this. This is an amazing family and an amazing kid with his entire life ahead of him. Why wouldn’t I?”
Korn immediately recognized the risk Williams was taking.
“RJ downplays this so much,” Korn said. “I try to put myself in RJ’s spot, with two young kids. There’s so much that can go wrong, yet he never wavered.”
‘Uncharted Territory’
The successful surgery took place in January, led by Dr. Vineeta Kumar, lead nephrologist of UAB’s Living Kidney Donor Program and Medical Director of UAB’s Incompatible Solid Organ Transplants programs.
Kumar noted that living kidney donor transplants remain uncommon – especially when the donor and recipient are not related. In 2024, only 6,418 of the 22,365 kidney transplants in the U.S. came from living donors. Of those, 59 percent were from biological relatives, and nearly half of the rest were spousal donations with compatible blood and tissue types.
That makes living donations like the one Williams made extraordinary. And more than anyone, after giving a kidney, the donor has to safeguard their own health going forward.
The case itself was far from simple.
“Will Nailen had a particularly concerning form of cancer,” Kumar said. “On paper, the cancer was at a high risk of recurrence, which can be life-threatening after transplantation due to the need for immunosuppression.
“But then you meet Will – someone our institution has known since childhood – now 21, with an absolutely incredible family, a bright future and the potential for a full life ahead. Will and the family understood the risks.”
There was no medical roadmap to follow. “There’s no literature describing transplants in patients with Will’s cancer,” Kumar admitted. “Every step was uncharted—a leap of faith for us as a medical team.”
She added, “It’s so humbling when patients and their families place their faith and trust in us guided by their own faith and beliefs. To walk alongside them in a journey we are writing together as we go – it’s an extraordinary privilege.”
The journey continues to unfold, this story yet written. All thanks to an unselfish gift of life.