10 year fight is almost over…finally a kidney!!

Hey everyone, my name is Justin Petralia but my friends call me JP. As many of my family and friends know I have been fighting tooth and nail for a kidney transplant as I have been fighting a laundry list of chronic health issues for nearly 10 years including end stage kidney failure requiring dialysis 3 times a week as well as type 1 diabetes, blindness in my left eye from diabetic complications, as well as chronic pain from my spine , back and most of my body at some point! I’ve had ups and downs, unfortunately more downs than I’d like to have had to experience including removal from a prior kidney/pancreas transplant list I had actually been number 1 on with two calls for organs, but unfortunately had to be sent home as the pancreas from both offers were sadly too damaged to use. Shortly after those transplant opportunities I was diagnosed with two types of kidney cancer which immediately removed me from the list. Fast forward to current time and I have fought as hard as I possibly could but am now being made eligible to be back on the transplant list and with a little luck and some good test results, I’ll be back at the top with a kidney coming to me very very soon! With todays new rules and such in regards to the transplant list they now use the amount of time in which a person has been on dialysis… I al approaching 10 years! Along with my still youngish age of 45 amd officially cancer free I will within the next 30-44 days be active and again atop the list once again! It’s been such an emotional roller coaster and realize it may have some ups and downs still. But more hope for this procedure than I have ever had! 5 years ago they removed the cancerous kidney along with as much of the surrounding tissue as possible to ensure all cancer cells were free from my body, with my last , and most recent CT scan clear as a bell!! As with the past, being listed in Boston, MA has with it several expenses and/or including travel, medications , food and lodging for family and the usual unseen costs of a journey like this. In addition the anti rejection drugs I’ll have to take for the remainder of my life have a retail cost of around $6000, a month! Life is truly priceless though.

i am hoping all of you can see it in your hearts to help me get to the next level and achieve the transplant I thought I would have had many many years ago. I hope with your help I can continue to work hard and with less worry I can ease the stress of all that is incorporated with such a major endeavor as this one. I just want to be normal again… free from that dialysis machine and free from all that it has attached to it. I hope to one day be able to work again and do nothing but help people. Show them that living in my shoes is hard but staying positive and fighting is the best way to go about it! I could go on forever but I’ve probably written a book by now. But I hope you will see it in your hearts to help in any way possible to have all in place for my dreams to finally come true!

All the love and support my friends and family have shown me over these years how amazing it’s been so much so I feel weird at even the thought of reaching out one more time to help me finally cross the finish line and live again!

This means the world to me and my appreciation to any and all of you is more than you will ever know from the bottom of my heart. And anything I can share or explain to you please reach out and I would be glad shade anything in which I may have left out!

love each day as if it were our last and love all of those around you. Cherish all those that have touched your life in a positive way and cherish it all! I love you all so much and so many in this world and want to have that opportunity to continue to do so for a very long time!