Elijah’s New Kidney

Elijah is my husband. Elijah is the strongest person I know. Also the most stubborn. He is a musician who lives to make music. He is smart and caring and full of life. He is only 24 years old. He is in stage 5 renal kidney failure. He only has one kidney. We took him to the doctor for what we thought was the flu. He was having fevers and vomiting and was extremely tired. His doctor thought he had the flu and extreme allergies. We got a phone call the next morning, at 4am, from his doctor telling him he needed to go to the emergency room because his kidney was failing. We rushed to the ER and within a matter of 3 hours, he was in surgery, having a tube placed near his heart for emergency dialysis. His only kidney had shut down and he had a creatinine level of 27. A normal level is between a .8 and a 1. The endocrinologist told us it was amazing he was up and walking around, going to work. He didn’t look like it, but on paper, Elijah was very close to death. He was in the hospital for 6 days, having 4 dialysis treatments there. As an outpatient, he has dialysis 3 times a week, for 4 hour sessions. This is why we need your help. We do have insurance. However, because he now has dialysis 3 days a week, he cannot work like he used to. He is back at work, simply because we cannot live off my salary alone. His hours have been cut in half, and even though I am working full time, combined, we do not make nearly enough to pay even a weeks worth of sessions. We both work retail jobs and bring home less than two thousand dollars a month. We have an apartment, bills to pay, a new renal diet to feed and we will owe $879 per week for dialysis. Or, $45,708 per year. And that is after our insurance has helped us. We cannot afford to not have him on dialysis. This is what is keeping him alive. His doctors tell us that it could be up to 3 years until he receives a transplant. So, for the foreseeable future, this is his life. And why we need any help we can get. I’m asking for $5,000 because that will help us pay off the now 5 sessions he’s had as an outpatient, as well as the $3,000 he has in general hospital bills. After that we should be able to set up a payment plan and hopefully be able to pay off one weeks treatment (3 sessions) per month. I’m also asking you to please share this, whether you donate or not, please share. And thank you for anything you are able to donate. You are helping to keep my husband alive until he can receive a new kidney.

I’ve also had a few people ask about donating a kidney! His blood type is O+. We do not know when he will be put on a transplant list, which is why they estimate about 3 years of dialysis. No one has been tested yet either.