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Audra's Getting a "new" kidney!

I am swallowing my pride and am in need of help. I am a wife, a Mama to 3 beautiful, smart kids and a fur mommy to a handsome Bengal kitty. I live in Idaho and work in the health insurance industry but my company has laid off my department as of January 15th. As many of you may or may not know, I was born with only one kidney and was doing great with that until I got kidney stones when I turned 21. I had multiple stents placed and have had my ureter reimplanted twice. The last surgery helped for bit but I still had chronic pain. The answer then was to put me on pain management. I also have grade 4 vesicoureteral reflux. That means urine shoots back up my ureter and makes it all the way back up to my kidney. This causes recurring infections, scar tissue and damages your kidney over time. So now i have been on pain management for 15+ years and in and out of the hospital with infections (almost monthly), stones and excruciating pain for the past 5 years. Finally, with the help of specialists at the University of Utah,  we have found a fix (insert  hallelujah chorus here) and I will be getting a kidney auto transplant on December 14th. This is great news, but what is not so great is that I do not have any paid leave from work. My previous hospital stays used all my PTO and my company does not have a medical leave program. This puts me and my family in a very tight situation with bills, travel back and forth to Utah and food. I will be in the hospital for up to a week, then home but back to Utah again for a 2 week follow up, then home again to complete recovery. They say I am looking at 3 month full recovery time. Any help would be greatly appreciated as it would be one less worry during recovery and time away from my family as I could focus on recovery and not try to push myself back to work because I am worried about how our bills can be paid and my family fed at the same time. Thank you all so much!
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Donations 

  • Pedro Rojas
    • $50 
    • 5 yrs
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Organizer

Audra Girard
Organizer
Emmett, ID

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